Hear
The cold front that with heavy rains which caused one death and more than 6 thousand victims of the floods in Chile moved to Argentinawhere until this Thursday temperatures above 22 degrees were recorded.
In the trans-Andean country, the phenomenon affected the regions of Valparaíso and Metropolitana, in the central zone; in addition to O’Higgins, El Maule and BioBío, in the south. In the Coquimbo region, in the north, there was practically no impact.
The greatest damage was concentrated in Biobío, 600 km south of Santiago, where 6,309 of the 6,392 affected people are located. according to the latest report from local authorities. There, in the last 24 hours, 182 mm of rain fell and two rivers overflowed in the town of Curanilahue.
In this sense, the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, stated that “the worst of this frontal system is behind us, but we cannot let our guard down.” The front continued its trajectory towards Argentina, which is why the Chilean authorities canceled the active weather alert.
“80% of this frontal system has already left Chile and is in the territory of Argentina“said the Undersecretary of the Interior, Manuel Monsalve.
The Chilean Meteorological Directorate had issued on Wednesday an unusual “climate alarm”, which implies the highest level of warning to the population due to intense rainfall and winds for the center and south of the country, an area that covers 14 of the 20 million Chileans and where the authorities declared a state of “catastrophe.” The Chilean capital had not registered these types of alarms for two decades.
The latest report from the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (Senapred) maintained the balance of one person who died due to the emergency in the city of Linares. Meanwhile, in Santiago it continued to rain and a total of about 80 mm of water was expected to fall, the same amount as expected for an entire month of June in a normal year.
The cold front was accompanied “by an atmospheric river” categorized between 4-5 on a scale of maximum five, due to the amount of water vapor available, which “considerably increased the amount of expected precipitation,” according to the Meteorological Directorate.
AFP Agency
THE NATION
