Peru used helicopters to airlift foreign tourists trapped by rain and mudslides that killed seven people in and around its famed Machu Picchu ruins, but frustrations grew among the more than 2,500 still stranded. The operation, which began Monday, by late Tuesday had rescued 125 of the foreigners, most of whom were waiting by a helipad near the ruins themselves, emergency services said. But another 1,900 were stranded in nearby Aguas Calientes and 670 more on the Inca Trail, a narrow Andean pathway up to Machu Picchu that takes four days to complete and which was cut in several places by landslides. 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. Two Peruvian men drowned in the valley's swollen river, another died in a landslide, and a mother and her child were killed in Cusco. Machu Picchu attracts more than 400,000 visitors a year. The 15th-century Inca fortress is located on a high mountain ridge 70 kilometers from Cusco.
