Evacuations from torrential rain and flooding across Buenos Aires Province total more than 7,500 people, said the provincial government late Saturday night.
Floods caused by heavy rains that have been overflowing rivers for three days across the region, with bridges and highways cut off in the wake of intense storms that Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof attributes to climate change.
National and provincial government officials have launched search-and-rescue missions in flooded areas, with emergency shelter sought for those who have fled their homes.
The storm, which began Friday, is mainly affecting the northern part of the province, as well as Buenos Aires City and its surrounding metropolitan area, home to some 15 million people.
The latest bulletin from Kicillof’s government, issued at just before midnight Saturday night, reported more than 3,100 people as being "housed in evacuation centres", in addition to another 4,400 rescued from flooded places "or who voluntarily moved from their homes in different municipalities.”
Kicillof, a top Peronist leader who opposes President Javier Milei’s national administration, blamed climate change for the intense weather event.
"This event is absolutely extraordinary, it is the weather, it is changing; it is called climate change," he told the Crónica TV news channel.
The official recalled catastrophic flooding of March 7 in Bahía Blanca, in the south of the province, and warned that "places where this never happened are being flooded" as a result of global warming.
Provincial Security Minister Javier Alonso said at a press conference with the governor and other authorities that “more than 400 millimeters fell during these three days and water will continue to fall.”
He also asked the population to “stay at home” and to take precautions.
– TIMES/AFP
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