A girl walks through floodwater outside her home in the El Indio settlement on the outskirts of Piura, in northern Peru, in March 2017. Photo: Ernesto Benavides / AFP

By David Sim
24 March 2017 (International Business Times) – At least 84 people have been killed been killed in floods and landslides caused by El Niño storms wreaking havoc across Peru. About half of the country is in a state of emergency to expedite resources to the hardest hit areas, mostly in the north where rainfall has broken records. Flash floods have destroyed more than 145,000 homes and 5% of the Andean nation’s roads. In the normally dry Lima, where a third of Peruvians live, school classes have been suspended and running water restricted after treatment plants were clogged with debris from mudslides. People living in flooded neighbourhoods now face the spectre of diseases thriving amid pools of stagnant water. IBTimes UK presents powerful photos showing the scale of the most devastating environmental calamity to strike the Andean nation in two decades. [more]

Powerful photos show the scale of the floods and landslides across Peru