May 31st, 2025 marked 55 years since the tragic Peruvian earthquake of 1970 which triggered a landslide that buried the town of Yungay. Like every year, municipal authorities prepared a lively commemoration programme to mark the destruction of Yungay on May 31st, 1970, and the civic rebirth of the town one year later, on May 29th, 1971.
The climax of the programme took place on the morning of May 31st as a procession, organized by the Church of Santo Domingo, between the new town and the ruins of its old site. Morning mass was held at Santo Domingo. Wearing orange ribbons on their lapels, the disaster survivors then led proceedings through the town in conjunction with local and religious authorities.
Fourteen of Yungay’s most important institutions took part in the pilgrimage, preparing alfombras, or images, that symbolize the town’s destruction and its rebirth. Political dignitaries carried a crucifix along the way, evoking the suffering of Christ and his empathy with the bereft.
The pilgrims’ final destination was a second mass at the ruins of the former Santo Domingo church, destroyed by the 1970 disaster. The congregation heard an open-air service in view of the Huascarán, from where the landslide came. Such has been tradition since the first anniversary of the catastrophe.
Here some of the participants explain what this commemorative date means to them.