At least 15 dead leave landslides in the Peruvian region of Arequipa

Several towns in the Arequipa region were affected by landslides that have left at least 15 dead and thousands homeless.

Local authorities hope that the figure may increase in the coming hours.

Last Sunday, intense rains softened the matter of the hills until causing the alluvium in the Nicolás Valcárcel district, in the province of Camaná.

Stones and mud that descended through the streets buried people. The National Institute of Civil Defense (Indeci) and the regional government of Arequipa counted 20 injured and two missing, as well as some 12,000 victims.

The damage has been magnified in the towns of Miski, Secocha, Urasqui and San Martín, which are home to mining operations where workers from other regions arrive, who could have died buried in the tunnels that pierce the hills of this province, explained Governor Rohel Sánchez.

“There is a high probability that in the tunnels themselves there are also people who are dead there,” the local president said at a conference.

The landslides in Nicolás Valcárcel also caused damage to 310 homes and destroyed another 10, and also affected a health facility and three rural roads, added Indeci.

Arequipa authorities asked the central government to declare an emergency due to a natural disaster, as reported on their social networks.

Meanwhile, other landslides that occurred on Sunday in two Andean districts of the department of Lima (center) damaged 99 homes, leaving 265 people homeless and another 365 with damage to their homes, according to another Civil Defense report.

For this Tuesday, the visit of the president Dina Boluarte was scheduled to deliver community aid.

The Ecuadorian government expressed its solidarity with the situation. (YO)