A restive mining region in northern Peru was calm Monday one day after President Ollanta Humala declared a state of emergency in a bid to end to several days of labor unrest, officials said.

"The population of Cajamarca is resuming its normal activities," said Interior Minister Oscar Valdes, who told Peruvian radio that classes had resumed at schools throughout the region and that traffic was flowing normally.

Sunday's state of emergency, which will remain in force for two months, allows authorities to keep the troubled region under military control.

It also suspends certain constitutional rights, such as freedom of assembly, freedom from unauthorized searches and seizures, and the ability of people to travel freely across the affected area.

The crackdown followed an 11-day worker strike over the adverse environmental impacts that many in the region fear will result from a planned $4.8 billion mining initiative.

The so-called Conga project, currently in the exploration phase, is an plan by US company Newmont, to extract seven million ounces of gold and 400 million pounds of copper by 2017 from the area.

The open-pit project, located some 3,700 meters (12,140 feet) above sea level, involves moving the water from four lakes high in the mountains into reservoirs the company would build.

But the Conga project has drawn protests from local residents, including mine workers, farmer and environmental activists, who fear among other concerns that contaminated water from the project could despoil the areas lakes and rivers.

Protesters say the reservoirs do not adequately replace the lakes, which also provide groundwater for agriculture and to irrigate pasture fields for livestock.

Cajamarca is Peru's leading dairy and livestock region, and the issue is of particular concern as a drought has forced water rationing for three months.

Peru's deputy environment minister Jose De Echave last month resigned in protest over the project, calling official environmental impact studies on the project "weak, outdated and lacking in credibility."

Local officials who support the strike have repeatedly invited Humala to visit Cajamarca -- a department of 1.4 million -- but so far only Prime Minister Salomon Lerner and three other members of the president's cabinet made the trip.

Protests forced the closure last week of the airport in the city of Cajamarca as some 500 protesters besieged it and 100 passengers headed for Lima were left stranded.

They also had used boulders and fallen frees to block road traffic, but police removed these barricades on Saturday.

Cajamarca, known as the city where the last Inca emperor filled a room with gold to pay ransom for his release from Spanish conquistadors, is located 870 kilometers (550 miles) northeast of Lima. The Spaniards kept the gold and killed the Inca emperor.