The Peruvian government on Saturday declared a state of emergency for the village of Llusco, in the southern department of Cusco, after a landslide devastates homes, fields and highways, APA reports quoting Xinhua.
The decree, signed by President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, comes after intense rains had a devastating effect over the last week in the area, with a landslide destroying over 100 houses, a school and a clinic.
According to the government report, the state of emergency will last 60 days, with the aim of bringing aid to the hundreds of displace.
The president of the Peru Geophysical Institute, Hernando Tavera, said that the landslide was caused by a saturation of water in the earth, with the village being situated at the bottom of a slope in a mountainous area.
Over the past 10 days, said Tavera, over 30 hectares of earth were reported to have also moved, causing widespread alarm among residents.
The Peruvian authorities have announced they will send a team of experts to the disaster area, in order to carry out technical evaluations about the behavior of the earth and tectonic movements.
The Center of Operations for Regional Emergencies also wrote that "there has been no personal damages, however, a number of homes were flattened. There is collective panic."