• Traffic & Accidents in Lima

    How to Solve Lima’s Missing Manhole Crisis in a Hurry

    The body of the teenage boy who drowned in a Lima sewer has finally been found, Lima police announced July 24. After a 12-day search, the body of Ray Pomiano Villanueva was found in the Huaral district of Chancay, approximately 186 miles from where he fallen into an open manhole. Pomiano, who was trying to catch a bus when he plunged in the hole, was swept away by rushing sewage in front of dozens of witnesses. The boy’s body was found in a sewage drain by fishermen. He was 15 or 16 years old, according to conflicting accounts in Peru21 and El Ojo. Missing manhole covers are common on the streets of Peru, where thieves…

  • Traffic & Accidents in Lima

    Lima Teen Falls in Open Manhole & Disappears in Sewer

    This is one of the most awful events I’ve heard about recently. Lima has a huge problem with people stealing manhole covers, and the streets are becoming hazardous to pedestrians – now fatally, for one Lima teenager. El Fotógrafo told me about the incident over breakfast. “What a way to go,” he said, shaking his head. The story was so preposterous, I didn’t believe him at first. Then I googled “tapas de desagues [sewer tops], Lima,” and the news item came up on the Peru21 website. Blogger Kalun Lau wrote about a similar theft problem in Trujillo, on his Spanish-language site Kalumonology (Lau’s photo of sewer hole minus lid above).…

  • Daily Life in Lima,  Traffic & Accidents in Lima

    Death Window, Lima Combi Bus

    Looking through El Fotógrafo’s photos of the car crash in our neighborhood in April, I was struck by the irony of this image: The driver of the combi had just crashed his busload of passengers into a small car driven by a mother with her preschool daughter. Medics had already arrived on the scene to cart the wounded to the hospital. Combi drivers in Lima are notorious for their recklessness, which borders on the suicidal. Under the skull and crossed daggers, the message in yellow reads: “Si no manejo bien, llama a tu hermana” (If I’m not driving well, call your sister).

  • Daily Life in Lima,  Traffic & Accidents in Lima

    Crazy Combi Collides with Car in San Antonio, Miraflores – Victims Strewn on Sidewalk

    LIMA, PERU (4/29/08): You don’t usually see car crashes in my quiet neighborhood of San Antonio, but that changed abruptly last Saturday afternoon, April 26, when a speeding combi bus collided with a small car carrying a mother and child. The combi plowed into a concrete pole at Avenida Arias Aragues and Calle General Silva, by Parque Leoncio Prado, injuring numerous passengers and ramming the other motorist’s car into an orange detour sign. Ambulances carted victims off on stretchers, and police and reporters ran around piecing together events, while angry neighbors lined the sidewalks, fuming, “I told you so.”