Lima (AFP)

Peru will install 18 new security cameras in the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in February after the recent damage inflicted by tourists on this world famous site, authorities have announced.

"We will strengthen the security of Machu Picchu by installing high-tech cameras," the director of the archaeological site, Jose Bastante, told AFP on Tuesday.

Eighteen cameras will be installed, in addition to the six already in place, at three strategic points in the citadel as well as in the access area.

"This will allow us to better control visitors and avoid any action or violation of the regulations as well as all types of risk," explained Mr. Bastante.

This decision comes after an incident on January 12, when six tourists, including a Frenchwoman, were arrested, suspected of having defecated in the ruins and dropped a stone at the Temple of the Sun.

According to the authorities, they had entered the site illegally, without paying the entrance fee, and had gone into hiding to stay overnight, which is prohibited.

Five of them were expelled to Bolivia last week, denied entry to Peru for 15 years. The sixth, an Argentinian named Nahuel Gomez, 28, was sentenced to three years and four months in prison, suspended, and paid $ 1,860 in fines for damaging Peruvian cultural heritage. He admitted to having moved a stone from a wall of the Temple of the Sun which fell and damaged the floor of the building.

"The damage caused is incalculable," said Bastante, "it has broken the integrity of Machu Picchu".

The city of Machu Picchu, whose name means "Old Mountain" in Quechua language, was built under the reign of the emperor Pachacutec (1438-1471). Discovered by the American explorer Hiram Bingham in 1911 and listed as World Heritage by Unesco since 1983, the city is located a hundred kilometers from Cuzco, the former capital of the Inca Empire in south-eastern Peru today.

Emblematic site of the Inca empire which dominated in western Latin America for a hundred years before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, it is perched on a rocky spur at 2,400 meters above sea level.

Some 5,000 tourists visit it every day. The entry ticket varies between 35 and 65 dollars, depending on the country of origin. It is 28 dollars for Peruvians.

© 2020 AFP