MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mines swept by heavy rainfall forces closure of Chile/Peru border passage

Chilean defence minister Andres Allamand

A main border pass between Chile and Peru remains closed to all traffic because recent heavy rainfall and flooding have swept antipersonnel and anti-tank mines in the region, in some cases all the way to the Pacific, where beaches have been put out of limits.

“Under no circumstances will traffic resume at the Chacalluta pass which links the city of Arica with neighbouring Tacna (Peru)”, announced Chilean defence minister Andres Allamand during a Tuesday tour of the area.

“We’re considering several alternatives: one of them is to try and reopen the pass on Wednesday, once all the clearing has been done; the other is a partial reopening for light vehicles leaving heavy trucks and other transport for further on“, Allamand was quoted by a local television station.

However the minister was adamant that top priority is people’s security and safety, “so as long as I don’t have a written certification from the Army specialists that the pass is safe and we won’t have to be sorry about any incident, the situation will remain”.

Allamand also revealed that he has been in contact with his Peruvian counterpart to have the best possible coordination in the clearing task of the area.

“This (Tuesday) morning the Army detonated several artefacts that surfaced, and the specialized personnel continue extracting mines. We expect to have a lane of the pass cleared in the next 24 hours, just to the culverts” explained the Chilean minister.

Because of the closure of the pass linking Chile with Peru, along the coast, the Chilean consulate in Tacna has had to find lodging for 300 Chileans that were left stranded.

On Sunday and Monday many of the stranded Chileans had to spend the night in tents in the gardens of the consulate because the office and other premises were packed. The conference room of the consulate has become an improvised movie theatre to keep children distracted and their parents less stressed.

“We have provided food, medicines and blankets. We have also supplied cellular phones so they can reach relatives and internet to re-program their return by air of other land crossings”, said the Chilean consul in Tacna.

Following torrential rains and flash-flooding, fields along the common border with antipersonnel and anti tank mines dating back to the seventies, have seen some of the explosives swept away and a few of them even emerged at a nearby beach forcing the area to be declared out of bounds.

In the seventies, at the height of tension between the military regimes of Chile, Bolivia and Argentina, the Pinochet dictatorship fearing initiatives from its neighbours planted tens of thousands of mines along strategic border areas.

Although the removal task has began, the process is costly, complicated and takes time.