At least six people have died in northwestern Peru in floods linked to Hurricane Yaku, the Peruvian Civil Defense said on Friday.
The floods, caused by heavy rains and flooded streams, began this week and have worsened over the past 48 hours.
The floods affected urban and rural areas in the provinces of La Libertad, Lambayeque, Piura and Tumbes (north) on the border with Ecuador.
The head of the Civil Defense Service, Cesar Sierra, told the radio channel “Ixitosa” that Hurricane Yaku, which started about 500 km from the Peruvian coast, is “a very unusual phenomenon that has led to an intensification of rainfall in the north of the country.”
And the Peruvian Meteorological Service pointed out that this type of hurricane, “disorderly and different from tropical cyclones,” is linked to the “El Nino” weather phenomenon, which causes a rise in the temperature of the waters of the Pacific Ocean off Latin America.
In a statement published at a later time, the director of the National Institute of Civil Defense, Carlos Yanez, explained that “until now, since the start of the rainy season (more than three months ago), 58 deaths have been recorded,” without specifying the circumstances or dates of these deaths.
