The storm affected the northern part of the province of Buenos Aires, as well as the Argentine capital and its metropolitan area, which houses about 15 million inhabitants
About 3,000 people remain evacuated and the authorities seek three missing in the Argentine province of after the floods caused by heavy forts that lasted until dawn on Sunday (18), the provincial government said in a statement. The storm affected the northern part of the province, as well as the city of Buenos Aires and its metropolitan area, which houses about 15 million inhabitants.
“There are currently 2,938 evacuated in 21 municipalities,” said a statement from the provincial authorities on Sunday, adding that “security forces are looking for three people: a couple who were horseback riding in the city of Rojas and a 78 -year -old man traveling along Route 41 (…).” The number of evacuates was less than half than Saturday night.
“After last night’s storm (Saturday), the water is backwards in all sectors and people are starting to return to their homes,” the statement said. Both the national and provincial government have launched emergency operations, sending brigade members, technical teams, rescue vehicles and refugee items such as mattresses, blankets, dry clothes, water and food, for the most affected locations.
“This event is absolutely extraordinary, the climate, it is changing; it is called climate change,” Governor Axel Kicillof told Chronicle TV on Saturday. The governor remembered the catastrophic floods of March 7 in Bahía Blanca, in the southern province, and warned that “there are flooded places where it never happened.”
Cindy Fernandez, a meteorologist at Argentina’s National Meteorological Service, said that “normal precipitation in May is about 70 to 80 millimeters throughout the month.” On the other hand, the climate phenomenon that flooded the north of the province “was five times larger than normal.”
*With information from AFP
Posted by Carolina Ferreira
