Mudslides! (or huaicos as they are called in Peru)

Our Final Journey to Ica

Photos:

*The children hanging out in their temporary home after the flood. 

*What remains of homes after mudslides and water passed through. 

*Damaged homes, with thick mud and rocks all around. 

*This photo provides some perspective of the depth of the debris. Look at the doorway and window buried in mud at the top right of this photo.  

*What you see that looks like bamboo or palm fronds on the ground is all that remains of the roof of this house. To make the roof,  a bamboo and palm frond lattice is covered with mud which hardens forming a roof. 

*Tent camps where flood victims currently live (4 photos). 

*A local church leader (stake president) with donated food boxes just like the ones which were donated to earthquake victims. 

*Tent with some food reserves in it for the community kitchens. 

*The response command post with boxes of relief supplies. 

*A health care worker giving a vaccine for hepatitis, tetanus, and influenza which is a higher risk under these conditions. 

*Sacks of dry corn cobs which are used for fuel for cooking. 

*Community kitchen (fueled by corn cobs). 

*Food being prepared in the community kitchen. Community kitchens are set up in disaster areas to provide food for all of the people affected by the mudslides since they no longer have their own cooking facilities. 

*These temporary dikes kept the mud and water out of the neighborhoods (2 photos). 

*Elder (Rob) Merrill standing on the dike along the riverbed. This dike broke further up stream allowing the mudslides to destroy houses and agricultural land. 

Our final week in Peru took us full circle to where we began--a road trip with Moroni and Alex to Ica.

This time, instead of simply discussing emergency response, we were responding to an emergency there. Heavy rains have led to mudslides (or huaicos as they are called here) with lots of damage to communities in their paths in many parts of Peru. We travelled to Ica this week for one such affected community. We have projects underway in many of the affected communities.

The rains fell 20 kilometers away (more than 12 miles) from this community and the mudslides traveled that distance with devastation in their wake. Along the entire coast of Peru there is rarely rain so there is very little (or no) vegetation to hold soil when the rains do arrive. The huaicos are more akin to flash floods caused by thunderstorms, but rather than simply water, they are composed of mud, rocks, boulders the size of cars, and any debris picked up along their path.

Unfortunately, in addition to burying their homes, the crops in their fields were covered by the mud and rocks and their mango tree groves were also covered. Unless they can remove this thick mud layer, the trees will die since their roots have been smothered. Recovery from a disaster such as this can take years and some communities never fully recover.

In Ica we are donating boxes of food for families, just as was done in response to the earthquake last year in Arequipa province. The boxes will provide food for a family of 4-5 persons for two weeks. The Church of Jesus Christ is also donating mattresses, blankets, picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows to assist these communities as they dig out from the mudslides and work to reestablish themselves. Most of the families fled their homes with little more than the clothes on their backs.

   

Something encouraging as we arrived to visit with the government officials was the fact that they had been able to use their own resources and storage to provide tents and food to the affected families immediately after the mudslides. The community has been cooking in a common community kitchen established in each of the campsites where they are located. The food we donate will now be given to each family as they begin the process of recovery and begin caring more fully for their own individual needs.

Waterborne and other illness is a risk following any disaster and we observed health officials administering hepatitis, tetanus, and influenza vaccine in one of the tent communities. The government here has responded well and Church donations help to supplement and strengthen the emergency response.

As we drove through Ica itself, it was interesting to note that along the main roadway where the water and mud traveled, the government had dumped piles of sand and rocks where the side streets branched off to make a temporary dike to prevent encroachment of the water and mud into those neighborhoods. They have obviously done this before. Along the road where the flow went, all the doors, garage doors, business entrances had sandbags up a couple of feet above the sidewalk to protect from the wet mess that passed through the town.

Some of the roads in town we drove on looked like rough dirt roads, but they were just the paved streets with an obscene layer of mud and rocks left on them that hadn't been cleared yet. It was amazing to see how much mud and rock blew through the city, but apparently how well prepared most of the residents had been and how quickly they got back to their business once it passed.

The place where we visited outside Ica where the greatest damage occurred was due to the failure of a retaining dike. A channel had been built in the area where the mudslides have historically passed when they have occurred. A 600 yard section of the dike had collapsed, allowing a large amount of the mudslide to exit and damage the homes, cropland, and orchards of the people in the community. The residual is what passed through the city of Ica where the streets and business/residences had been sandbagged and diked.

The section of the dike pictured here withstood the force of the mud and water very well as it was capped with rocks and then had metal netting (fencing) over the top to prevent the rocks from washing away. The netting material extended across the top of the dike under a layer of fill to anchor it in place. The new dike being rebuilt where it had failed will be constructed in the same manner to hopefully avoid a repeat in the future.

We have been privileged to be the Lord's hands to some of His children here in Peru for the last 18 months. It seems rather poetic that this journey took us full circle to return to Ica for a response to an actual emergency rather than simply making contingency plans for one. We love the Savior Jesus Christ and while we will dearly miss our new friends in Peru, we are also excited to return home to family and loved ones. We feel that our service here has been a blessing to us, to our families at home, and to the people among whom we have served. We look forward to serving again in the future and encourage anybody considering a humanitarian mission to go for it!