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6 killed in mudslides near Machu Picchu Courtesy of the Associated Press | |
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| Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, speaks on his cell phone in rescue coordination area in the town of Aguas Calientes, 310 miles (500 kilometers) southeast of the capital, Lima, Peru on Saturday, April 10, 2004. A landslide killed at least six people in a tourist town below Peru's famed Inca citadel of Machu Picchu early Saturday, and five others were missing and feared dead, officials said. (AP Photo/Oscar Paredes). |
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Peru is pulling out all the stops to recover from a deadly mudslide near the famed Inca citadel of Machu Picchu near Cuszo.
The mudslide on Saturday killed at least six people. Five others were missing and feared dead. About 400 tourists were stranded when the mudslides buried a railroad line and destroyed seven houses in the town of Aguas Calientes, below the citadel. The rail line is the only route in or out of the town. Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo was at Machu Picchu when the mudslide hit and was coordinating rescue efforts, a Government Palace report said. At least seven houses were swept away, Toledo told Radioprogramas radio. He had said 11 people were missing, but that was before a local official announced that six bodies were found. "I have given urgent instructions to repair the rail line to re-establish transit," Toledo told Radioprogramas radio. "I know that we cannot give back life, but we will do everything at least to recover the bodies." Hector Olivera, a town councilman, told radio reporters later that six bodies had been recovered and that some 1,000 to 1,500 feet of rail track was buried. At the time, Toledo was in the area acting as a tour guide for the Discovery Travel Channel, which is filming a special on Peru. No foreigners were believed injured by the pre-dawn mudslide, which fell into the Alcamayo River, but between 300 and 400 tourists were stranded, Carlos Cuaresma, regional president of the Inca capital, Cuzco, told Canal N television. A local family of six, whose house was buried, was missing, as were four laborers who worked along the river, he said. The identity of the 11th missing person was not immediately known. Toledo said he ordered government helicopters to airlift the stranded tourists back to Cuzco. "The tourists can rest assured that I will provide them with the helicopters," the president said. Margarita Valencia, who runs Gringo Bill's Hostal in Aguas Calientes, told The Associated Press by phone that the second avalanche hit the rail line six miles from town. "There are tremendous boulders -- giant -- that are blocking the rail line," she said. "They are boulders four or five meters (up to 16.5 feet) across." The mysterious, partially reconstructed citadel is South America's top archaeological site. It draws 300,000 foreign visitors each year. | |
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Chullo (Andean Hat)
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Visiting the "Callejon de Huaylas"
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