Lima, Sep 6 (EFE).- The Peruvian government on Wednesday approved the Reconstruction Plan with Changes, which sets forth an investment of 25.655 billion soles (about $8 billion) to rehabilitate the infrastructure and services affected by extensive flooding earlier this year.
After the plan’s approval by the Council of Ministers, the executive director of the Reconstruction with Changes Authority, Pablo De la Flor, said at a press conference that the projects included in the document will create 150,000 jobs in 2018, reactivate the Peruvian economy and modernize the country’s infrastructure.
The plan, which will be published on Thursday in the El Peruano official daily, will focus on investments in transportation, education, housing, sanitation, healthcare, agriculture and roadways for 13 of the country’s 25 provinces.
De la Flor said that some $6 billion will be invested – about 80 percent of the total allocation – in repairing the road network in the northern part of the country, where the worst damage occurred, and in particular in the Tumbes, Piura, Lambayeque and La Libertad regions.
The remaining sum will be allocated to preventive projects to avert similar damage during the next weather event of similar magnitude.
De la Flor said that the plan includes the relocation of small villages where the homes cannot be rebuilt on their original locations because they are in zones at high risk of future flooding or landslides.
The adverse weather resulted in the loss of more than 64,000 homes, some 400 schools and about 70 medical facilities, as well as the destruction of about 4,400 kilometers (about 2,730 miles) of roads and almost 500 bridges, according to the latest tally by the National Emergency Operations Center.
The disaster also resulted in 163 deaths, 20 people missing, more than 500 injured, about 277,000 with serious property damage and about 1.6 million adversely affected in other ways.