Wildfires driven by El Niño have killed 12 people in Peru since June and left several hundred people homeless, the country’s authorities said on Wednesday.
Most of the dead were farmers, according to the National Emergency Operations Center (COEN). They were injured while trying to put out the fires and later died.
The Cusco region has been hit hardest. Earlier this month, a wildfire spread there near Machu Picchu, the landmark of the Inca civilization.
A total of 457 wildfires were recorded in Peru between June and October.
Daniel Valle, a biologist at the Scientific University of the South in Lima, said the fires are spreading quickly because El Niño has driven up temperatures and created dry conditions.
“El Niño has created a huge layer of intense heat and dry air over the whole of Peru,” he told AFP.
Farmers also often set fire to scrubland to clear land for crops, and such fires often start wildfires. The wildfires have burned more than 1,000 hectares of farmland and destroyed about 100 homes.
Seven wildfires were burning in the Andes and in Peru’s Amazon region on Wednesday, COEN said.
El Niño is a natural climate phenomenon in which surface water in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean warms. It changes wind patterns, air pressure and rainfall around the world.
This year’s “super” El Niño could peak in December, but it is already causing widespread damage in several regions, including Central America.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report