house, mother and son swept away by river swollen by rain

Rescuers found on Wednesday the bodies of a mother and her son who the day before fell into the main river of Lima, whose flow has grown in recent weeks due to the rains after the passage of cyclone Yaku. Part of the house they lived in, built on a cliff next to the Rímac River, also fell.

Police reported that María Reyes, 35, and her son Rubén Flores, 18, fell more than 15 meters on Tuesday night until they fell into the Rímac River after the foundations of their concrete and brick house were broken. eaten away by the waters in the last days. Another ten neighboring houses also suffered the deterioration of their foundations.

“The houses continue practically in the air; over time they are going to give in and continue these tragedies,” he told Associated Press José Rivas, a rescue agent.

The Prosecutor’s Office reported that the body of the son and mother were found in the river. María Reyes was a vendor of juices and cold drinks who had lived in that house for 15 years. Neighbors reported that more than a decade ago the house was more than 10 meters from the river’s edge, but over the years, the channel got closer until the water partially collapsed it the day before.

Authorities estimate that since January the rains have caused 50 deaths and affected more than 20,000 homes. They also estimate that there are 1,303 houses destroyed and 1,578 uninhabitable homes. The economic losses add up to about 4,000 million dollars.

During the early morning, the rescue policeman Jhoao Jolkeda, who had gone down to the Rímac River using ropes in search of the injured people, was knocked unconscious after a María Reyes refrigerator also fell into the water, hitting him on the head. Local television stations recorded the moment of impact. Police later reported that the agent was recovering at the capital’s police hospital.

Last week, the impact of the inclement weather led to more than three dozen wooden houses in the north of Lima also being swept away by the Chillón River, which crosses the capital through that part and flows into the Pacific.

Rainfall has increased in recent weeks in Lima, a city where historically it rains little. The unusual fall of water caused about thirty avalanches in various areas of the capital that flooded the houses through which the mass of earth and stones flowed with mud.

The rains also caused the closure of a highway in northern Peru the day before after a lagoon destroyed a bridge that connects an area rich in phosphates with the main city of the Lambayeque region.

According to the National Meteorology and Hydrology Service of Peru, the overflows and floods were driven by Cyclone Yaku, an unusual phenomenon present off the coasts of Peru and Ecuador.

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