A massive ice block broke from a glacier and crashed into a lake in the Peruvian Andes, unleashing a 23m tsunami and sending muddy torrents through nearby towns, killing at least one person.
The chunk of ice, estimated at the size of four soccer fields, detached from the Hualcan glacier near Carhuaz, about 300km north of the capital, Lima, on Sunday.
It plunged into a lagoon known as lake 513, triggering a tsunami that breached 23m-high levees and damaged Carhuaz and other villages, authorities said.
The Indeci civil defense institute said 50 homes and a water processing plant serving 60,000 residents were wrecked. Trout fishermen initially presumed dead survived, leaving one confirmed death.
Authorities evacuated mountain valley settlements fearing that the ice block — measuring 500m by 200m — could be followed by more ruptures as the glacier melts.
Cesar Alvarez, governor of Ancash region, which includes the affected area, blamed climate change.
“Because of global warming the glaciers are going to detach and fall on these overflowing lakes. This is what happened,” he told Peru’s Canal N cable news channel.
Two people were injured when they saw the torrent of water, panicked in their car and crashed.
The number of casualties could have been much greater had the lake level been higher when the ice block fell.
“This slide into the lake generated a tsunami wave, which breached the lake’s levees, which are 23m high — meaning the wave was 23m high,” said Patricio Vaderrama, an expert on glaciers at Peru’s Institute of Mine Engineers.
It was the latest evidence that glaciers are vanishing from Peru, which has 70 percent of the world’s tropical icefields. They have retreated by 22 percent since 1975, according to a World Bank report, and warmer temperatures are expected to erase them entirely within 20 years.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
RSS