Peruvian helicopters Wednesday airlifted some 600 tourists from the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu where hundreds remained stranded by heavy rains and mudslides that have claimed seven lives.
"We have evacuated 600 tourists, but there are still almost 1,500 at Machu Picchu," Prime Minister Javier Velasquez told reporters.
About a dozen helicopters were used in the unprecedented airlift but "the persistent rains on the Cusco region are delaying the operation," he added.
The railway line that transports tourists between Aguas Calientes, at the foot of the ruins, and the city of Cusco, the ancient Inca capital, has been damaged and the tracks remain snapped.
Hundreds are still said to be stranded in Aguas Calientes with scores more believed trapped on the Inca Trail, a narrow Andean pathway up to Machu Picchu that takes four days to complete.
With the trail already cut in several places by landslides, there are fears for the remaining backpackers on the trek.
"People are sleeping in the street square, they are sleeping in gyms, in schools, on trains, in makeshift tents. People are just distressed," Julie Nemcich, 29, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from Aguas Calientes.
A 23-year-old Argentine tourist and a 33-year-old Peruvian mountain guide died on the trail, buried under mudslides, the National Culture Institute in the nearby town of Cusco said.
The other fatalities occurred along the valley leading to Cusco and in the town itself.
But Velasquez rejected accusations that the government was giving priority to foreign tourists and that some were bribing their way out. He said people over 60, children and the sick were the first to be evacuated.
The Peruvian government has also sent food aid to the 8,000 residents of Aguas Calientes, cut off by landslides and swollen rivers.
Officials also defended the slow pace of the operations, saying they were being hampered by the heaviest rains in 15 years.
"We didn't think the evacuation would take so long. We are making every effort" to wrap it up in the next 24 hours, Tourism Minister Martin Perez told the radio station RPP.
Some 400 Americans were among the stranded near Machu Picchu, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said in Washington on Tuesday.
The US embassy in Peru has sent four helicopters — usually used as part of anti-drug efforts — to help with evacuation efforts, he said.
In Sydney, Australia's foreign office said up to 170 Australians were among those stranded.
"We are in direct contact with many of those Australians and their tour providers, who we understand are making alternative transport arrangements," a spokeswoman said.
Fernando Celis, one of 300 Chileans trapped in Machu Picchu, complained to the online news website Emol that food was running short.
"We haven't been given anything to eat," he said, adding vendors at the site had doubled their prices when it became clear the foreigners were stuck.
Machu Picchu is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Latin America, attracting more than 400,000 visitors a year. The 15th-century Inca citadel is located on a high mountain ridge 70 kilometers (40 miles) from Cusco.
The country's civil defense service estimated the homes of 1,300 people in poor rural areas — many of them riverside dwellings made of clay and straw — have been destroyed. Another 12,000 people were affected to a lesser degree, losing possessions or suffering property damage.
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