Hundreds of families were forced from their homes Saturday in Nazca after the Aja River overran its banks, flooding a large swath of the southern coastal city up to the main plaza and damaging some 400 homes. Mayor Daniel Mantilla told Radio Programas that adobe homes were the hardest hit by the turbid waters and requested that Peru’s Civil Defense send tents, blankets and food as soon as possible to aid the displaced residents.
President Alan Garcia, who was in the nearby city of Pisco, told reporters that a team of Civil Defense officials, accompanied by a government commission, had been dispatched from the capital, Lima, to assess the damage.
Garcia said fortunately Civil Defense had just been allotted 67 million soles, or about $23 million, the night before to offer relief to flood victims in Peru’s northern Andes and jungle regions and to continue recovery efforts from the magnitude-8 earthquake that rocked Peru last August.
