SECOCHA, Peru (AP) — Residents of five small gold-mining villages in southern Peru’s Arequipa region struggled Tuesday to salvage belongings after landslides caused by strong rains killed at least 12 people and dragged mud, water and rocks that turned precarious homes and other buildings into rubble.
In the Mariano Nicolas Valcarcel municipality, on the edges of a depleted mining extraction area in Camana province, people desperately searched for anything they could salvage amid the mud.
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A local Civil Defense official said Monday that at least 36 people had died in the landslides, but on Tuesday a prosecutor told The Associated Press they had confirmed only 12 deaths, as well as three people who were still missing.
The landslides destroyed key access roads into the remote villages, making it difficult to confirm the death toll. Peru’s government had yet to release any official numbers, although the president traveled to the affected area Tuesday.
The slides that began Sunday and continued Monday from the highest mountains in the area destroyed everything in their path.
People were helpless and could only watch as the mud and rocks swept away their homes in the five villages, where miners have been living for two decades.
Dramatic video from the region showed people covered in mud being dragged out of the mud.
Many people slept outside out of fear that more slides might come.
“We’re isolated,” Arturo Munoz, who lives in La Eugenia, where the landslides began Sunday, told The Associated Press by phone.
The full extent of the damage remained unknown as rescue workers were unable to get heavy machinery into the area.
The main road in the small village of Secocha was covered by a muddy sludge that seemed to be everywhere and had pushed through doors and windows. Residents were working feverishly to clean mud out of their belongings, including kitchens, refrigerators and televisions.
The prosecutor in charge of the incident, Luis Supo, reported the lower death toll Tuesday. A day earlier, Wilson Gutierrez, a Civil Defense official from the Mariano Nicolas Valcarcel municipality, told local media that 36 bodies had been recovered in the remote village of Posco Miski.
Supo said that by Tuesday authorities had received the remains of only 12 people.
Officials said Monday that the landslides had also affected bridges, irrigation channels and roads. Around 630 homes were no longer usable, officials said.
Heavy rains are frequent in Peru in February and they sometimes help spark landslides.
