The storm left without light much of Bahía Blanca, which houses one of the main ports of the country; City Hall also suspended the supply of energy for safety reasons
The balance of floods in the port city of Bahía Blanca rose on Saturday (8) for 13 dead, hundreds of displaced people and at least two missing children. Friday’s flood “destroyed” the coastal city located 600 km south of, declared national security minister, Patricia Bullrich, with hospitals underwater, a collapsed road, isolated whole neighborhoods and homes without electricity.
Bullrich and Defense Minister Luis Petri were expelled from a neighborhood affected by rains by a group of residents who complained about the delay of their presence: “Last night you had to be here,” hearing a shared video on social networks. Some of the residents tried to drag Bullrich to an area with water stopped at the shouts of “wet”, and she had to be rescued by police and coast guard agents.
The latest balance provided by the authorities is 13 dead, of which 11 were identified, but the city of this city of 350,000 inhabitants does not rule out that there are more fatalities. Authorities are looking for two girls who would “have been taken by the water,” Bullrich said in a conversation with local radio Miter broadcaster. According to the Argentine press, they are one and four years old sisters.
The number of evacuates fell from 1,321 to 850 between Friday night and Saturday afternoon, according to the latest city report. The storm left without light much of the coastal city, which houses one of the main ports of Argentina. Then the city suspended the supply of energy for safety reasons.
Throughout Saturday, the city’s electricity company reported that 120,000 customers were still affected. The storm, which began in the early hours of Friday and lasted until early afternoon, poured over 400mm of rain in eight hours, which is “what rains all year in Bahía Blanca, practically […] It’s unheard of, ”Buenos Aires Province Security Minister Javier Alonso told TN.
The government authorized a help of 10 billion pesos (about 54.19 million reais) to repair the damage. For Andrea Dufourg, an environmental management technique, “this is a clear example of climate change” that “stands out for weather events that are extremes in which situations such as heavy and excessive rainfall happens, in this case also manifested by a flood that did not usually happen in some territories”.
“Regrettably this will continue to happen […] We have no choice but to prepare cities, educate citizens, establish effective alert systems and act as a result, ”said Dufourg, who is also director of environmental policies in the city of Ituzaingó on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
“Nothing left”
“For us it was a meter and a half water. Regrettably there is nothing left, ”said his office hit by the floods, the doctor Eduardo Seminara, to local C5N channel. In the transmission it is possible to observe that the interior of the room is full of clay spots and that there is still water. “It’s all ruined,” Seminara said pointing to a pile of chairs, pillows and wet and broken books, huddled on the sidewalk.
“In any case I don’t complain, we don’t lose any human life, our family is fine,” he sketches with optimism in the middle of the catastrophe.
Babies removed from hospital
Television images and others released by residents on social networks show nurses and other health professionals with babies in their arms during the evacuation of José Penna Hospital. They were later assisted by the Army.
A stretch of Route 3, one of the main roads that connect Bahía Blanca abroad, collapsed, according to the authorities. This Saturday, local media reported withdrawals at night and showed images of destroyed trades.
There were also heavy rains on Friday afternoon in the coastal city of Mar del Plata, about 400 km from Bahía Blanca. Bahía Blanca has a sad climatic history of climate catastrophs, the last in December 2023, when a wind storm caused 13 deaths, overthrew houses and damaged infrastructure.
The rains moved to the north and the national weather service issued orange alert to northwestern Argentina. In particular, in the province of Tucumán (North), strong precipitation was recorded that caused flooding.
*With information from AFP
Posted by Carolina Ferreira
