Mud Erased a Village in Peru, a Sign of Larger Perils in South America
Founded about a century ago, residents say, the village sits on a dry approach to the Andes Mountains
and is home to hardscrabble mountain dwellers who named it after a loner with a white beard — a barba blanca, in Spanish — who lived somewhere nearby in the hills.
BRAZIL Barba Blanca Lima BOLIVIA 500 Miles APRIL 6, 2017
Mr. Blanco, the construction worker, was flanked by his father, Ernesto, 65, who remembered the El Niño of 1983,
which sent sheets of mud sliding down a hill only a few hundred yards from the one that had recently collapsed.
By NICHOLAS CASEY and ANDREA ZARATEAPRIL 6, 2017
BARBA BLANCA, Peru — A sheet of mud covers the village.
"It was too much." The villagers of Barba Blanca now face a difficult decision: Should they resettle
in a region where mudslides are less common or take their chances and rebuild Barba Blanca?
But for those in the mountains in Barba Blanca, the village is the only place they have known — and the only place they would live.
that They never thought there would be such a flood,
"The desert is becoming tropical for a period," explained Abraham Levy, a Peruvian weather expert, saying
that this year’s floods were the most severe since 1997 and 1998, when the last large El Niño event occurred.
The destroyed village of Barba Blanca, however, had long known the risks.
