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A huge glacier has broken off and plunged into a lake in Peru sparking a 23-metre high tsunami wave that destroyed a nearby town.The massive chunk of ice - around the size of four football pitches - tumbled into the '513 lake' in the Andes near Carhuaz, around 200 miles north of Lima.
According to the Indeci civil defence institute, 50 homes have been destroyed. A water processing plant serving 60,000 local residents was also devastated when the wave struck on Sunday.
Initially, six people were reported missing, feared dead under the debris - but local governor Cesar Alvarez has said five of those have been found alive. Authorities evacuated mountain valleys, fearing more ice breakages after the tsunami - which are most commonly caused by earthquakes.
Blaming climate change, Mr Alvarez said: "Because of global warming the glaciers are going to detach and fall on these overflowing lakes. This is what happened."
Investigators have said the ice block from the Hualcan glacier measured 500m by 200m. Patricio Vaderrama, a Peruvian glacier expert, said: "The tsunami wave breached the lake's levees, which are 23m high - meaning the wave was 23m high."
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