Mudslides Threaten Machu Picchu in Peru, Destinations Elsewhere

Climate changes including increases in typhoons and hurricanes may trigger landslides at world heritage sites like Peru´s Machu Picchu or Egypt´s Valley of the Kings, scientists said.

Increasing amounts of rainfall means a threat of more landslides worldwide, scientists of the United Nations University, Kyoto University and UNESCO warned Tuesday before a conference on landslide prevention in Tokyo.

The mountaintop city of Machu Picchu, Peru, one of the most magnificent relics of the lost Inca civilization, and the Valley of Kings near Luxor, Egypt, where a myriad of Egyptian pharaohs are buried top the risk list, scientists said.

“While all regions experience landslide disasters, the harm they cause is most acute in developing countries,” said Badaoui Roubhan, UNESCO´s chief of disaster reduction. “Lacking knowledge in how to identify areas at risk is the main problem in the developing world,” he added.

The rising temperatures of climate change itself might promote landslides, the researchers said.

Last month´s landslide in Yemen claiming dozens of lives was blamed on mountain boulders shifting due to changes in temperatures, the scientists said.

Among natural disasters, landslides are the seventh biggest killer, after droughts, windstorms, floods, earthquakes, volcano and extreme temperature. In the past 20 years landslides have claimed on average 800 to 1,000 lives a year, the report said.