New images of the level of destruction in the Cusco area of Peru

The Spanish language blog El Caminerito has been covering the magnitude of the rainfall, flood and landslide disaster in Cusco, Peru. They have put together a very helpful map showing the locations of serious damage:


Ver Cusco en Emergencia en un mapa más grande

The scale of the disaster, which is still being ignored by the western media in favour of coverage of the tourists at Machu Picchu, is well-illustrated by these images of the Huacarpay region:


Meanwhile, via the Typeboard site, the Spanish language site Peru.com reports that the village of Zurite was severely damaged by a landslide, which sounds to be a debris flow (Google translation):

" the landslide of mud and stones covered the Plaza de Armas, the town’s Church, the main streets of the city and damaged 500 houses. The incident occurred about 3 pm on Thursday after they noticed a crack on a hill and began to take appropriate action, emergency services were able to evacuate the entire population."

This is the Google Earth imagery of Zurite:


There is no shortage of landslide scars on the hillside above the town, plus the quarries, one of which appears to have excavated out the toe of one of the scars.

Here is an image of the central square via the Panoramio site: