FACTORTIERRA

Local el Niño's heavy rains smashed the place where a mine was almost to drill.   By Liliana Alzamora and Nelson Peñaherrera   TAMBOGRANDÉ, Peru - Santa Cruz hill, now in the middle of the town, was in prehistoric times a dome volcano. Its red soil, rich of cooper, is the evidence of a hot past. Nowadays, any volcanic activity happens in or around but the people. Only a decade and a half ago, many opposed to a proposed open-pit mine that implied to remove the so-called Old Town, Tambogrande downtown actually. Seen from the top of Santa Cruz Hill in a usual summer, Tambogrande looks like invaded by a green tide by the east, the North and the West - San Lorenzo Valley Colonization, the main mango and lime production area in Piura Department , at Peruvian Northwestern. The Old City remains there after the population defeated the formerly called Manhattan Minerals Corp., today renamed as Mediterranean Resources . However the green tide was not completely gre...

The relationship between Piura City and the water has not been one of the most positive, misunderstandings are older than its Spanish foundation.  By Nelson Peñaherrera   PIURA CITY , Peru - It is supposed that Francisco Pizarro founded San Miguel on August 15th, 1532, becoming the first Spanish Empire's city in South America, locating  it over the Tallan [pronounce "Tajahn"]  town of Tangarara, actual Marcavelica District, just beside Chira (then Turicarami in Tallan language) River.  What promised to be a productive convivence -the soil was pretty fertile- turned disease soon. Malaria decimated the immigrant population, that decided to move away the river . In 1534, it went about 50 miles SE of Tangarará, next to Pilán Mount, Monte de los Padres Acres and Las Damas Creek, actual La Matanza District. Although Lengash River ran nearby,  the city did not located beside this time. It could be renamed as Piura (supposedly from quechuan "Pir...

The functional vision and mission of a less vulnerable city before El Niño.  By Julio ernesto Gianella *   PIURA CITY, Peru - The knowledge we have not assimilated from Pre-Hispanic people is the urban planning. The best proof is  that many of the cities built in the past  are still there despite the natural disasters  and the time lapse.  The city of Caral ( Supe , Lima ), the most ancient of South America, was wisely built and it has not suffered from floods , Nature's onslaugths  neither, in 5000 years of existence. The virtue of urban planning is upon the balance between the what we want and what we can. If it has no contribution  of the vision  and the wishes on a better future, we stay trapped into more of the same; in the other hand,  if  it exceeds in futurist dreams, it crashes into the reality and detracts. That is why the main basis of the Piura's future planning must be the non-vulnerability before the nat...

New deluges slamming the ancient Sícan land.   By Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Instagram     PÍTIPO, Peru – It was a long drought period, people was desperate. Their governors ran to magic to ease the arrival of rains but nothing seemed to work. The angry people conspired, set the main city on fire. Time later, the rain came on… rather, days of true deluges. The place flooded, the people had to move to another safe zone.   It was 1100 AD. At Pomac Forest, people saw their agriculture dying because of the water lack . It hadn’t rained enough during 30 years, and rites of priests and governors were useless. It’s supposed that ignited the riot.   Archeologist Izumi Shimada (Kyoto, Japan, 1948) has researched the place since 1978. It’s known as Batán Grandé today, maybe because of many boulders to exist for grinding minerals due to the old Lambayequé people was expert in goldsmith.   Also known as Sic...

Piura Valley confirmed to be vulnerable to meteorological events.     San Francisco Creek as it loaded on March 24 th , 2023, between Sectors Palominos (at the background) and Malingas, blocking the pass between  Districts Tambograndé and Chulucanas. (Footage provided by  Jhony Dioses , verified by and distributed by FACTORTIERRA)   The Peruvian Government had alerts of heavy to extraordinary rains since the second quarter of February 2023 . That’s why it declared a preventive emergency on March 3 rd . The whole northern half of peru was included in order to urge works preventing disasters, especially at northern coast and sierra, according to forecasts of Peru’s National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology (Senamhi, as in Spanish).   Beginning at the north edge, Tumbés Department already came with rains and overflows since February 2023 what isolated many towns, especially at the border with Ecuador . A little more to the south, at Lambaye...

They said that 2012 would be a dry year… they said.   By Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo   PIURA CITY, Peru – Sánchez Cerro Vridge, February 24 th , 2012, 7:00 in the morning, 1400 cubic millimeters per second. The water is colorized by the violent improvisation instead of the unexpected. Piura River overload was the season attraction after months and months looking a flow like a creek-category.   The cement coat of Eguiguren Pier avoids the flow power to erode the banks of Piura and Castilla Cities, like it happened in 1983. The work was build after 45 miles to the west, El Niño Current caused extreme rains between January and June of that year.   The river put the people on alert in 1998, 2001, and 2005. Just in 1998, the power of water destroyed Bolognesi Bridge, the fourth from north to south, killing around 50 people. “I’m not never going to forget that number – 4414 cubic meters per second,” El Tiempo’s journalist Teo Zavala remembers. After that tragedy, every ...