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Peruvian village hit by mudslide

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Published: April 17, 2009 at 5:09 PM

LIMA, April 17 (UPI) -- A mudslide has buried at least 40 houses in a mountain village in Peru, officials said Friday.

The state-run news agency Andina said that as many as 90 people could have been killed in the disaster in Chamanacucho, CNN reported. Twelve people were known to have been rescued from the village.

Search and rescue efforts have been hampered by blocked roads.

Mountainsides in Peru are now saturated with water as the rainy season comes to an end, Walter Tapia, a spokesman for civil defense, said.

"From October to now, it hasn't stopped," he said.

Carlos Loyola, mayor of Sanchez Carrion Province, said that even walking into the stricken village is difficult. He said that the slide was about a mile long and had covered 500 acres, mostly farmland.

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