Punta Hermosa mayor justifies evacuation claim: ‘I prefer to err on the side of exaggeration’

Guillermo Fernandezmayor of Punta Hermosa, an area located in Limeexplained the rationale for a statement released by his municipal administration last Saturday in which he called on residents of said area for “emergency evacuation” in the face of an alleged “large-scale landslide” that, fortunately, did not occur.

It should be noted that the Minister of Defense, Jorge Chavez CrossHow senamhi And indecisive They ruled out that option.

“Message to the people calmness. A ground inspection was carried out this morning and we have now been flying over the area for 45 minutes, so there is no evidence that there is a mass of mud or water that could affect the areas of Punta Hermosa, San Bartolo and Punta Negra.” said the minister Chavez Sunday morning.

For this reason, in dialogue with RPP newsthe burgomaster indicated that the alarm, which was finally ruled out, was based on a video “which went viral” and on information from residents of the area.

“We received information not only from video that it went viral, that we got it before it went viral, but the information from the residents of the eastern part of the area who came to do anxietytelling us that this lagoon is about to explode and that an avalanche of impressive magnitude is coming,” he said.

In this sense, he indicated that he had made a decision to protect the lives of neighbors who could be in danger.

“If I have a responsibility and I receive information that suggests a minimal danger to people’s lives, I have to make a decision. solution at this point and suggest what you should do. I choose to sin for exaggerated”, he pointed out.

“The authorities did not have information”

Similarly, the mayor claimed that he requested information about the alleged waiko from the competent authorities, but “they did not have it.”

“It was a decision that had to be made at 17:00 or wait for official information to see what they would tell us because (…) we were trying to get information through indecisive and didn’t have. So what’s done? HE wait sitting official information or decision. I made a decision and we evacuated (…) I consulted with the authorities and they had no information. I was with the Minister of Defense,” he said.

The mayor also noted that his decision was made after he saw the impact of two previous landslides affecting his jurisdiction.

“The information I received was this. Municipality of Punta Hermosa We do not have access to all the information, and we are involved in the preparations for the next landslide. We received, like never before in history, two consecutive monstrous huaicos for two days in a row, which filled the entire city with mud. In such a state of anxiety, fear of what might happen, this information comes in, I am connected with technology and with all people and must make a decision or wait for official information,” he said.

Finally, the mayor confirmed that his management had done the job prevention and that their community is already prepared for the arrival of a possible landslide.

“We completely cleared the river bed, we did it in January (…), waiting for the 2017 scale uraiko. What happened now is a thousand times bigger than the first, and the second was much bigger,” he explained. .

“Now we are ready, because we have built defenses, we have placed more than 40,000 sandbags on the streets, we have realized that the path that water and mud naturally seek (…) other than the flow of ordinary huaico,” he said . added.