“I have lost everything,” laments Fisber García, knee-deep in water. His clothing store, totally flooded since the night of Tuesday, March 14, 2023, is one of those affected by the rains caused by Cyclone Yaku in Lima, which has shown once again the little prevention of the authorities before this type of phenomena, rare but noticed in the desert capital of Peru.
On Tuesday night, currents of water, mud and stones reached homes, shops and roads in various parts of the province of Lima, the result of the rainfall that the country had been waiting for days and that was not as intense as expected.
The Lima district of Chaclacayo, on the outskirts of the capital and surrounded by hills, is watered by huge puddles like a kind of track.
Although so far the effects have not been as tragic as expected and with the dark memory of the El Niño phenomenon in 2017, the residents show anger and resignation due to the absence of the authorities after the damage and their little planning in the face of a cyclone of which the experts warned weeks ago.
“I work with clothing and sewing machines, and all my tools, my jobs, everything has just been lost and the worst thing is that the municipality has not come to help us with anything,” Fisber told EFE with teary eyes.
He explains that, more than the rains, it was the strong flow that entered through the door from the road, something that had never happened in the five years that his store has been running, today useless and full of fabrics.
“We thought that the municipality was going to come support us but so far nothing, with our own means with the neighbors trying to solve something,” he says resigned.
He shared a rudimentary water pump borrowed from a farmer friend with Margarita, owner of a small cevichería a few steps away, who unfortunately agrees with her neighbor when pointing out that she has lost everything.
Purple onions used for the quintessential Peruvian dish floated in the brown water, while their owner exhaustedly searched for a way to remove the water from her restaurant.
“We need help, but since yesterday no one has shown up,” he says, explaining that the current of water came suddenly and destroyed all the appliances in his business.
neighborhood help
While a dozen neighbors swept one of the flooded streets, two small children looked perplexed at the panorama, a plan that will accompany them all day because classes have been suspended for the day in the province of Lima.
In a nearby community, Olinda explains that the water did not get into her small cellar because they put sandbags, and that tonight together with the neighbors they have been awake to prevent the current from passing.
«I prepared something hot for everyone and we were cleaned ourselves. But no one else came to help us, the municipality has not come, we have not had support from anyone, they have not even given us plastic or protection when it was known that three streams could burst », he points out.
The constructions that both in Lima and in the rest of the country have been most affected are those that are made near the basins and on the hills, especially the informal ones.
The houses closest to the wall of the hill in the affluent area of El Cuadro also suffered the consequences of the strong current of water and stones that devastated swimming pools, trampolines and dog houses and that has entered living rooms and rooms.
And if in Lima the traffic is sometimes hellish, the fall of rocks on roads as busy as the Central Highway has caused hundreds of people to give up trying to catch a bus and began to walk for kilometers to get to work avoiding puddles. and mud.
The neighbors have spent part of the day fixing the ground to avoid getting wet, but above all looking at the sky, which is beginning to darken again. EFE