 President Toledo was filming a TV travel programme at the time |
Rescue workers in Peru are using heavy machinery in the search for 10 people still missing following mudslides near the Machu Picchu ruins on Saturday. The head of the local rescue services told the BBC that one body had been found in the town of Aguas Calientes, where one of the landslides occurred.
Other local officials have said three bodies have been recovered.
President Alejandro Toledo, who was in the region when the disaster struck, has lent his helicopter to the effort.
The head of the National Civil Defence Institute, Rear Adm Juan Luis Podesta, said he thought it would take several days to locate the missing.
"There is a team working non-stop on the rescue operation," he told Peruvian radio.
"The problem is that a number of houses have been destroyed and it will probably take some time yet because of the quantity of mud and rocks."
Railway reopened
Hundreds of tourists trapped by the mudslides have now been evacuated from Machu Picchu to the nearest city, Cuzco.
An avalanche of rock and mud destroyed several homes in Aguas Calientes. The other slide, at the entrance to Machu Picchu, fell on part of the railway line that carries tourists to and from the ancient citadel, 2,400m (7,800ft) high in the Andes.
But the site itself - which attracts some 400,000 visitors every year - was not damaged, and railway trips to the Inca citadel have now resumed.
The 15th Century fortress, thought to have been built by the great Inca ruler Pachacutec, was rediscovered in 1911.
One-Minute World News 
News services
E-mail this to a friend 
Printable version 
