The days after the Huayco

Canchaqué suffered again from a slide of mud and rocks during rains in 2023.

 

 

All the footage: © Juan Francisco Facundo Silva.

 

CANCHAQUÉ, Peru— “Look how it left!,” exclaims Juan Francisco Facundo Silva, a computation technician and producer of a streaming music-TV show, as he saw the debris and the print of a slide of mud and rocks happened just before midnight, March 15^th, 2023.

 

Juan, artistically known as Facundo, arrived three days later to see how his remaining family was doing in Canchaqué Town, 91 miles by road from Piura City – he couldn’t hold on the sadness despite he tried to manage it by recording with his mobile the clips we share here.

 

Collating a preliminary report by Peru’s National Institute of Civil Defense and testimonies of eyewitnesses gathered by FACTORTIERRA, on March 15^th, 2023, 23:15 PET (0415 UTC, March 16^th, 2023), Púsmalca Valley, where Canchaqué Town is located, had “intense rains.”

 

Somewhere the place known as Las Minas (The Mines), around 8800 feet altitude, the mud remaining from the works to remodel Huancabamba-Canchaqué Road formed a kind of dam that held the rain water. This joined Limón Creek, which its load increased, and added the mud plus  rocks to it.

 

Few time later, the stream reached La Villa, as Upper Canchaqué Town is known (3931 feet altitude). At least, two people, houses, and croplands were dragged by the flow rushin down quite fastly. But it also dragged the so-called Iron Bridge, an useless work uphill Canchaqué on the road to Huancabamba, and another bridge amid the town connecting the side settling on Guayanay Mount and the other one settling on Mishawaka Mount.

 

The people scared and ran away massively to the Canchaqué Town’s oriel. They slept out there. At the morning of 16^th (afternoon of 16^th, UTC), the most moved to Palambla Village (4167 feet altitude), about 1.5 miles, and the rest went to San Miguel de el Faiqué (3444 feet altitude), about 3 miles. The few ones who left to keep the properties, including the local squad of Peru’s National Police, continued sleeping capsized about the episode to repeat, possibly.

 

Pre-Hispanic experience

Huayco (pronounce waiko) is a Quechuan word to describe a stream – a sudden, fast slide of mud and rocks caused when the humidity at a slope is too much that the terrain is impossible to hold on, then, by effect of earth’s gravity, it precipitates looking for creeks courses or the deepest folds of the slope.

 

In Peruvian experience, the huaycos don’t use to open new courses but they use which they used for centuries. Pre-Hispanic people got to learn it, so they tried to build their temples, palaces, and cities in high zones, where the stream can’t pass through. That’s why they preserved. An example is Chan-Chan, the largest mud citadel in South America, in Trujillo Metropolitan Area, La Libertad Department (305 miles away Canchaqué). It was founded circa 850 AD by Chimú people.

 

Although Chan-Chan is 95 feet altitude and Trujillo Downtown is 112 feet altitude, the touristic guides explain the citadel is on a little hill and the city, founded by the Spaniards in 1535, is on the bottom of a basin where huaycos use to go down once San Ildefonso Creek overloads, as it happened in 1998 and 2017.

 

In Canchaqué case, there is no huaycos history but they have been broken since 2020 every rainy month. The preliminary investigation point out the mud piles left after remodeling the road to Huancabamba as the disaster’s cause.

 

Add to this that Canchaqué is in Piura River Basin, and although Púsmalca River, which is its tributary, doesn’t use to cause problems, the struck happens downhill when Serrán River, another Piura River’s tributary, breaks the road connecting to Piura City and the entire Peru.

 

Government relief began to arrive the day after the March 15, 2023 huayco, but people affirmed it was not enough. Businesspersons, journalists, and even Facundo started to move their connections to ease donations.

 

Canchaqué turned a touristic destination, especially from May to December, when the weather is better – it’s permanently sunny. The view of the mountains, called the Piura’s Switzerland here because of its beauty, is what the visitor gets. At the moment of posting this entry, it’s ignored how the huayco affected the touristic landmarks. “Any help is welcome,” Facundo said.

 

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