Mud avalanches in southern Peru | Eleven people …

Torrential rains in the southern Peruvian Andes caused dozens of landslides that killed at least 11 people, damaged hundreds of homes and left the area isolated due to the fall of a bridge over the Pan American Highway , according to information released yesterday. authorities.

The bodies of two children were found as a result of landslides or river floods in the Moquegua and Tacna regions. One of the children died in the city of Mirave, near the city of Tacna, on the border with Chile, a country that has also suffered devastation, as well as in Bolivia.

"Mirave is a small town completely destroyed," Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra said on television Sunday, after going to the village where all the inhabitants lost their homes.

"About 2,000 people live in Mirave" in precarious houses erected "in the center of a ravine" where torrential waters flow when they fall from the mountains, the president added.

Another 12-year-old boy died in the Ubinas municipality while he was trying to rescue a brother driven by the overflow of the Moquegua River in the area of ​​the same name. "He was the most studious and the most remarkable of all my children, and all his teachers always congratulated me," his inconsolable father Rubén Quicos told the press.

Vizcarra also inspected the damage in the Arequipa and Moquegua areas near Tacna and said that the 430 families affected by Mirave will have to be "transferred" to another location.

In addition to dragging the 12-year-old boy to Ubinas, the overflow of the Moquegua River overturned the Montalvo Bridge, located at km 1 091 of the South Panamerican Highway, which isolated the towns of Moquegua and Tacna from the rest of the country.

"Its destruction is total and it will take us at least a month to restore a temporary bridge," said Vizcarra, who however said that the transit will be restored in two days by taking advantage of another bridge on the same river.

In addition to the children of Mirave and Ubinas, five people have died in the past two days in two avalanches in Arequipa: two men and a teenager in the city of Aplao and two miners in a hole in the Rio Grande, according to the official report.

These victims are added to the four family members (a father and his three grandchildren) who died 10 days ago when a hill collapsed on their house in Suchimán, in the Ancash region, 400 km away. north of Lima. .

The authorities have not provided an updated national badessment of the number of victims.

The Australian summer months are the rainy season in the Andes of Peru, Bolivia and northern Chile. Every year, they cause avalanches and floods that sometimes reach the coastal cities of Peru and Chile.

A thousand soldiers have been deployed to help the victims in southern Peru, the Defense Ministry reported.

In addition, the government has ordered the shipment of relief supplies aboard the transport ship "Pisco", which will leave Monday the port of Callao (neighbor of Lima) to go to the port of Ilo, to Moquegua.

This Peruvian Navy ship will carry military trucks and amphibious vehicles, as well as medical personnel who can take care of patients on board the ship because it has a hospital with operating rooms.

"We saw the needs, many of which are taken into account; For example, Indeci (the Institute of Civil Defense) arrived with five trucks of humanitarian aid, with water, from the food, tents, blankets, to distribute them to the most affected "in Aplao, said the Minister of Defense, José Huerta.