MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peruvian Andes glacier breaks-off: preview of what is to come?

Chunk of ice plunges into lake causes 25 meters high tsunami wave

A huge glacier broke-off and plunged into a lake in Peru, causing a 23-metre tsunami wave that swept away at least three people and destroyed a water processing plant serving 60,000 local residents, government officials said Monday.

The ice block tumbled into a lake in the Andes Sunday near the town of Carhuaz, province of Ancash, some 320 kilometres north of the capital, Lima. Three fishermen were feared lost by the flooding.

Investigators said the chunk of ice from the Hualcan glacier measured 550 metres by 200 metres. This slide into the lake generated a tsunami wave, which breached the lake's levees, which are 23 metres high -- meaning the wave was 23 metres high,“ said Patricio Vaderrama, an expert on glaciers at Peru's Institute of Mine Engineers.

Authorities evacuated mountain valleys, fearing more breakages and declared the area in emergency.

It was one of the most concrete signs yet that glaciers are disappearing in Peru, home to 70% of the world's tropical ice-fields. Scientists say warmer temperatures will cause them to melt away altogether within 20 years.

In 1970, not far from Carhuaz, an earthquake triggered an avalanche of ice, rock and mud on the mountain of Huascaran that buried the town of Yungay, killing more than 20,000 people who lived below Peru's tallest peak, 6.768 metres.

”There is a large crack, 100 metres long and 30 metres wide, in the Hualcan peak, and if it finally falls down on the lagoon, it would create a mudslide four times bigger that the previous one,” said César Alvarez governor of Ancash province.

”Because of global warming the glaciers are going to detach and fall on these overflowing lakes. This is what happened today” Ancash Governor Cesar Alvarez told reporters, linking climate change to the disappearance of a third of the glaciers in the Peruvian Andes over the past three decades.

A 2009 World Bank-published report warned Andean glaciers and the region permanently snow-covered peaks could disappear in 20 years if no measures are taken to tackle climate change.

According to the report, in the last 35 years Peru's glaciers have shrunk by 22%, leading to a 12% loss in the amount of fresh water reaching the coast - home to most of the country's citizens.