Two women drowned in Peru after being swept away by “anomalous waves” on a beach on the Pacific coast, Peruvian authorities announced on Saturday, linking the event to the volcanic eruption in Tonga.
On another beach, waves swamped restaurants near the sea more than 10 hours after the tsunami hit Tonga.
Heyner Quiroz, 46, and Wendy Altamirano, 23, “were surprised by the successive waves” that pulled and drowned them on Naylamp beach, in the northern region of Lambayeque, civil defense confirmed to the AP agency.
The women were rescued from the water and received unsuccessful first aid, Casinaldo Altamirano, Quiroz’s husband and Altamirano’s uncle, told police. The man indicated that they were spending an afternoon with their family when the waves appeared.
Local media showed photographs of the two women placed in the back of a regional government van. Dalmiro Velasque, chief of the Lambayeque municipal police, told local radio station RPP that the waves swept the women “suddenly.”
Peru’s civil defense reported earlier that the beach of El Chaco, in the district of Paracas, 217 kilometers south of the Peruvian capital, a slight rise in sea level flooded the street adjacent to the Pacific and the restaurants that are in the area , although without material and human damage.
The police showed on their Twitter account a video where agents filled and placed sandbags as improvised containment dikes in the entrance areas to the beach.
More than two dozen fishing coves and ports were closed preventively.
The events occurred despite the fact that the Peruvian Navy’s national tsunami warning center said that the conditions for a tsunami warning had not been met, although it did admit the presence of waves.
With information from AP