First modification:
While a hundred people have died or disappeared in Peru since the beginning of 2023 due to torrential rains (85 dead and 14 missing on April 20 according to the National Civil Defense Institute), the cost of the damage – for the moment – is rising to 983 million dollars, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. In the city of Piura, the inhabitants are exhausted by the climatic catastrophe.
With our regional correspondent, Eric Samson
In the country, more than 300,000 people have been affected by the floods, 6,600 houses have been destroyed, 13,000 are no longer habitable and 171 schools have been destroyed. Given the slowness of the rescues, the population protests, especially in Piura, a city that went on strike last Tuesday.
They were supposed to last a century: commissioned at the end of 2022, they will only have lasted a few months, since the concrete slabs of the wall that is supposed to protect the city of Piura from floods have begun to break under the impact of water . This is another reason for the anger of people like the journalist Cindy Chanduvi: “We see state ministers who only arrive in Piura, visit some places and simply leave. It was demanded that at least the Minister of Housing, who is the one assigned to this northern region of Peru, stay here to manage”.
After the serious coastal El Niño phenomena of 1983, 1998 and 2017, the State launched a reconstruction plan to protect the infrastructure of the northern part of the country. Six years later, this program has had few results, which does not surprise Abraham Levy, director of the company Ambiental Andina, which specializes in climate studies: “No, no surprise. I am 61 years old, I have been presenting the climate on television for 25 years and radio and this story is the same 25 years ago. The actors change, nothing more”.
Although the government has announced the purchase of 200 pumps for Piura, the city is expecting a difficult week as extreme rains are expected to last until April 26.
