Five villages in southern Peru were left amid rubble after landslides caused by constant rains on Sunday and Monday, which washed away mud, water and rocks and destroyed precarious facilities and homes in an area dedicated to informal gold mining.
The residents of the Mariano Nicolás Valcárcel municipality, settled on the slopes of a mining area, were looking for their belongings buried in the mud on Tuesday, while others with muddy shoes and desperate faces came from remote towns to ask for help.
One of them was Mauro Noa, leader of the Posco Miski village, who was asking for help and food to help more than a thousand residents trapped since Sunday on the side of a mountain. They cannot cross because an immense body of mud and stones has formed in the shape of a river that surrounds the hill. “They are hungry and thirsty, nobody remembers them,” he told The Associated Press.
Noa indicated that in 18 years he had never seen an avalanche like the one that fell on Sunday in Posco Miski. He added that they have compiled a list of 14 residents of Posco Miski whose whereabouts are unknown. “The people reacted in disorder, the neighbors who could not leave their houses were carried away by the wave of mud,” said Noa. “The children have been traumatized, with the rain and the avalanche,” she added.