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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).…
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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).
