Peru mudslide
© unknownMudslide floodwaters trap thousands
Heavy rains accompanied by mudslide have killed seven people while trapping more than 2,500 tourists, who were visiting the renowned Machu Picchu ruins in Peru.

According to emergency services by late Tuesday, the rescue team managed to airlift 125 foreign tourists from the historic site to safer places, leaving back many others in frustration and distress.

Around 1,900 tourists were stranded in nearby Aguas Calientes and 670 more on the Inca Trail, a narrow Andean passage up to Machu Picchu that takes four days to complete and which was cut in several places by landslides.

"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, AFP reported.

Fernando Celis, a Chilean trapped in Machu Picchu, complained to the online news website Emol that some tourists were paying rescuers to be evacuated first.

"A helicopter arrived yesterday to take out the elderly and the unwell and some tourists who had more money. There are almost no North Americans left, only the backpackers, and British backpackers. People on tours who were waving their money about, they were all evacuated," he said, adding that food was running short.

"We haven't been given anything to eat. Each one is left to work out his rations," Celis said, adding that the vendors at the tourist site had immediately doubled their prices when they realized that the foreigners were stuck.

More than 400,000 foreign tourists come to Peru every year to visit Machu Picchu site, which is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Latin America.