Hundreds of tourists were yesterday being evacuated from a town near Peru's Machu Picchu Inca ruins after being stranded by landslides that killed as many as 11 people and cut off rail links to the area.
At least seven houses were swept away in Aguas Calientes in a landslide that followed heavy rains. Ten people were still missing yesterday and one body had been recovered. About 70 local people were made homeless.
A second mudslide buried the rail line, the only route in and out of Aguas Calientes, a town serving as a staging post for tourists making their way to the Andean fortress city.
"I have given urgent instructions to repair the rail line to re-establish transit," said Peru's president, Alejendro Toledo. "I know that we cannot give back life, but we will do everything at least to recover the bodies."
President Toledo had been in the area acting as a tour guide during the Easter holiday for the US cable station Discovery Travel Channel, for a special programme on Peru.
As many as 1,500 tourists were believed to have been stranded by Saturday's landslide that fell into the Alcamayo river which flows past the town. Several hundred were evacuated by helicopters and buses yesterday, and by the afternoon the rail link was restored, enabling hundreds more to return by train to the regional capital, Cusco.
Cusco's regional president, Carlos Cuaresma, said six members of a family whose house was buried in the landslide were missing, as were four labourers who worked along the river. It was not clear who the dead person was.
Margarita Valencia, who runs Gringo Bill's hostel, in Aguas Calientes, said the second avalanche had hit the rail line six miles from town.
Machu Picchu was used as a refuge by the Inca rulers until Spanish soldiers arrived in 1532 and began to topple their empire. Residents fled to Cusco or to the surrounding jungles to survive.
The mysterious, partially reconstructed, citadel in jungle-shrouded mountains is South America's best-known archaeological site. It draws 300,000 foreign visitors a year.
