TOURISTS STRANDED IN PERU MUDSLIDES

MUDSLIDES STRAND MACHU PICCHU TOURISTS
HUNDREDS TRAPPED AROUND INCA RUINS, 7 DEAD

LIMA (Reuters) - A mudslide on the famed Inca trail to Machu Picchu killed tourists as authorities evacuated dozens of tourists by helicopter from a flood zone where nearly 2,000 more were still stranded. Peru scrambled helicopters to evacuate some 2,000 tourists stranded in the Andes on Tuesday after torrential rains and mudslides killed 7 people and cut off access to Peru's ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu. Tourists became trapped at the World Heritage site in the jungle in eastern Peru after the heaviest rains in the area in 15 years flooded the zone over the weekend. The deaths raised to seven the number of people killed by heavy rains that have caused floods and landslides and collapsed homes. An Argentine tourist and a Peruvian guide were killed along the trail in separate mudslides, the government said, while two other deaths were reported over the weekend. The fifth person was killed when a hillside collapsed, and two more when their house collapsed. Authorities closed the Inca trail, a popular tourist trek that follows a stone path built by the ancient civilization from their capital, Cuzco, to the Machu Picchu citadel.

Machu Picchu, which was built in the mid-15th century and lies some 680 miles (1,100 km) southeast of Lima, is Peru's top tourist destination. Roughly a million people visit the site, which sits around 7,874 feet (2,400 metres) above sea-level, each year. The government declared a state of emergency and the company that runs trains between the Inca ruins and the nearby city of Cusco suspended services. Aside from the train, the only way to reach the ancient Incan site is to trek some 28 miles (45 km) through the mountains, a trip that takes on average 3 to 4 days. Authorities have evacuated hundreds of tourists by helicopter from the flood zone, and the airlifting operations are still performed today.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

The way of devotional service is neither sentimental nor mundane. It is the path of reality by which the living entity can attain the transcendental happiness of being freed from the three kinds of material miseries - miseries arising from the body and mind, from other living entities and from natural disturbances. ... His happiness is nothing but a hard struggle to get free from the miseries of conditional life. But there is only one way he can be rescued, and that is by accepting the shelter of the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
“The Śrīmad Bhāgavatam”
Purport in Canto 3 - Chapter 5 - Verse 40.