Peru prepares for Cyclone Yaku and declares a state of emergency in Lima

At least 59 dead and more than 12,000 homeless have left flooding due to rains and rivers overflowing on the north and northeast coast of Peru due to Cyclone Yaku.

Photo: Diego RAMOS / Peruvian National Police / AFP

The inhabitants of Lima are preparing for a new episode in the rainy season that Peru has been experiencing for more than five months. According to the authorities, Cyclone Yaku, a phenomenon that causes increased rainfall, is close to reaching the coasts and would increase the balance of damage left by the winter. It is worth remembering that the winter season in the Inca country has left a balance of 59 dead and at least 12,000 homeless.

The capital of Peru, according to the authorities, is not prepared to withstand the rains and floods that Cyclone Yaku would bring with it. Therefore, Dina Boluarte decreed a state of emergency this Monday in 400 districts of the country and put 18 areas of Lima on alert.

Before the rains, Boluarte had to suspend school activities again this Monday in more than 30% of the country, including Piura, La Libertad, Callao and Lima. Primary education classes, it is worth remembering, have had to be stopped several times in the last month due to floods and landslides.

For the president, the state of emergency seeks “immediate and necessary actions to reduce the very high existing risk.” In addition, she seeks to mitigate the damage that the rains and Cyclone Yaku can generate in the capital.

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The presence of Yaku has already increased the rainfall in northern Peru, which has generated large floods due to the overflow of rivers, as well as landslides in different regions of the country. For example, at the beginning of February of this year, a landslide generated by rainfall left 40 dead in Camaná, a city in the south of the country.

The authorities have confirmed that seven people have died in recent days due to the rains, one in Trujillo, four in Piura and two in Lambayeque, while 592 districts are at high or very high risk due to avalanches, floods and landslides that rains can cause

When presenting a balance on the actions taken by the Government to attend to the emergency, Boluarte assured that they are working “tirelessly” to attend to those affected and leave concrete solutions to the problems generated by meteorological phenomena.

winter season

The presence of this type of cyclone is associated with the El Niño climatic phenomenon. “In Peru there was already a cyclone in 1982 and 1983 with El Niño and in 2017, but this time it is bigger,” meteorologist Raquel Loayza told radio on Friday. PTR.

“This cyclone is weakening as the waters cool and it approaches the coast,” he added.

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El Niño is a climatic phenomenon that causes overheating of the waters in the South American Pacific, hitting the coasts of Peru and Ecuador mainly with rains and floods.

Given the imminence of the event, the authorities declared a state of emergency for the surveillance system in anticipation of avalanches and other disasters.

Defense Minister Jorge Chávez explained that 5,000 members of the Armed Forces have been deployed to support emergency operations in various regions, with all available land, naval and air resources.

Chávez reiterated that the rains can generate “critical scenarios” in his country and said that, in the case of Lima, specialists and Army machinery have been sent to the basins of the Rímac, Chillón and Lurín rivers, which run through the Peruvian capital.

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