7 die as tourist plane crashes at Peru Nazca lines

Thu Feb 25, 2010 2:07pm EST

LIMA Feb 25 (Reuters) - At least seven people died on Thursday as a small plane carrying tourists over Peru's famed Nazca lines crashed into the desert, officials said after the latest mishap in the country's tourism industry.

Peru's state news agency said three Chileans and four Peruvians were on the plane. One of them was a child.

Police said the accident happened at 11:30 a.m. (1630 GMT) near the ancient geoglyphs, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Peru after the Incan ruin of Machu Picchu.

Floods racked the town next to Machu Picchu in January, stranding thousands of visitors and destroying a train line that carries tourists high into the Andes. Losses from the floods are estimated to reach $800 million.

Several tourists planes that fly over Nazca have crashed in recent years, most recently in 2008, when five French tourists were killed.

The Nazca drawings, designed between 200 BCE and 700 CE, are so large that they are best seen from the air and are difficult to appreciate from the ground.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site includes dozens of drawings of spiders, monkeys, fish and llamas that stretch hundreds of feet across.

(Reporting by Patricia Velez and Teresa Cespedes, editing by Jackie Frank)




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