After Cracks Opened Up The Ground Beneath Their Feet These Peruvians Learned How Exposed They Were To Climate Disaster

“Watch the little sinkhole,” said Mr. Mejia, Deputy Mayor Jamalka. “He should help us if we fall in,” he said, gesturing to a person ahead. His comment was brutally true. Jamalka residents had a front-row seat to a terrifying scene in March as cracks in the earth and landslides destroyed the neighboring settlement of Guayacan before their eyes. They are now looking off a figurative cliff, with the fear and real possibility that what happened to their neighbors will happen to them. “This showed us how vulnerable we are,” Mr Mejia said. Daniel Mejia is the vice mayor of the area affected by the flooding of the Utcubamba River in El Salao, Bagua, Peru. In Guayacan, the ground it began to bend and crack at night, trapping people as they walked in the dark and tripped over gaping holes. Some had to be pulled by the hair on their heads. As Guayacan evacuees entered Jamalca, the townspeople packed their bags and began to flee, worried that the cracks were heading their way. Fortunately, the earth stopped moving and no one was lost in Guayacan. But overall, thousands of people have been moving since November. According to the national government, more than 10,000 people have been affected and more than 2,000 families have lost their homes. Refugees affected by the earthquake were moved to temporary tent shelters. San Luis – Caldera in Utcubamba, Bagua Grande, is one of them. The families were moved to temporary tent camps and the government flew in water, food and other humanitarian aid. Peruvian President Pedro Castillo surveyed the damage, vowing not to rest “until all those affected regain the quality of life that all Peruvians deserve.” But interest soon waned in a country wracked by political and economic crises, and plagued by one of the highest rates of COVID-19 infection in the world. The impact of natural disasters is compounded by extreme weather events, in parts of the world where survival is already a struggle, government capacity is limited and human activity weakens the ecosystem’s ability to withstand the stress. “My experience after 10 years of working in disaster and risk management in Peru and other parts of Latin America is that we will have increasingly complex emergencies,” in which one risk triggers another, Mr. Romero said. . “It happens little by little, in small communities, in small areas, but when you add it all up, the losses they are even bigger than the earthquake.” International organizations have been sounding the alarm about climate-related migration for years. The World Bank has warned that, by 2050, climate change could force 216 million people to migrate within their own countries – 17 million in Latin America. Peru in particular is at additional risk. A joint report by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the International Organization for Migration, a UN agency, estimated that half of its territory is exposed to recurring natural hazards, with more than nine million people exposed to heavy rains, floods, flash floods. and landslides; seven million at low and very low temperatures. and nearly 3.5 million due to drought. Just last week, a large landslide in northern Peru hit the Chavin de Huantar region, burying at least 150 buildings and displacing at least 200 people. Videos recorded by eyewitnesses show villagers fleeing for their lives as the rock and earth debris destroyed their homes. “Many internal migrants have no choice but to settle in areas exposed to multiple hazards, such as riverbeds, floodplains and water-affected hills on the outskirts of cities,” the report notes. The November earthquake forced the evacuation of two communities, Pueblo Nuevo and Santa Rosa de Pacpa, located about 700 kilometers northeast of Lima. Days later, the Utcubamba River overflowed and flooded two other towns. On December 9, heavy rains deepened cracks in the earth in the town of San Isidro, snapping a school, a health center and houses like branches. Senayda, who was affected by the earthquake in Utcubamba, now lives in a tent in the temporary shelter in Bagua Grande, Peru. For Senayda, 33, it was her third migration in seven years. The first was about prosperity. She and her husband and four children moved to a new community, where for the first time they were able to find a sustainable way of life through farming. They tended their small plot of land, growing corn and other vegetables and selling it in the nearby town of Bagua Grande. “Everything was fine until November 28, the day of the earthquake,” Senaida said. The Globe and Mail is identifying her and other Save the Children aid recipients by their first names only to protect their safety and prevent stigmatization. The November earthquake left Senaida and her neighbors fleeing. They were taken to a shelter in another community. But the authorities did not realize that the landslides had blocked a natural water runoff and when it rained heavily, the nearby ravine filled and washed away this shelter, forcing everyone to flee again. “This was even more horrible for us, because two people died, two neighbors,” Senaida said, her voice cracking. “We got out of there basically naked. It was around 9 in the evening, we got out of there climbing a mountain, with old people, children, pregnant women. We were in the mountains until 2:30 or 3 in the morning under these heavy storms and the fear that the world was about to end.” She is grateful to be alive, but also devastated. Her children are now studying in another city. “It’s not easy to be left with nothing. Without any hope of being able to return to your land,” he said. With no income for his family after the earthquake in Utcubamba, 16-year-old Marco decided to go alone to Bagua Grande, where he now lives in a temporary shelter. Marco, her neighbor, felt something similar, only it involved a soccer field. The 16-year-old and his friends had a deal every time they played on this field in the middle of their small community. They bet three soles (Peruvian currency) – two soles for the winner, one sole for the field to buy gas to mow the lawn. The stadium was their prized possession: It belonged to no one and to everyone at the same time. “I felt this emptiness, seeing the little field where we played soccer completely gone,” he said of a recent visit home. Displacement hastened the process of his independence. With no income in his family, he decided to go alone to Bagua Grande, to work on his aunt’s chicken farm. “I was a little nervous because I’ve always been with my mom, but I had to support her.” Often, there are underlying difficulties, such as people living in remote or rural areas with poor access to basic services and livelihoods, said Pablo Peña of the UN’s International Organization for Migration. It is working with Peru’s environment ministry on a plan to address migration caused by climate change. “The extreme event is not necessarily because it rains more or because the earthquake is stronger, but the conditions in which people live now make them more vulnerable and this results in a greater impact,” he said. Mr. Cespedes said insufficient funding was partly to blame for the delay in the relocation, which is being run by another department, the ministry…