BUENOS AIRES – The wave of cold air from the Antarctic affecting practically all of Argentina with heavy snowfall and below-freezing temperatures has left nine people dead, Red Solidaria, a non-governmental organization that works to ward off such fatalities, said on Saturday.Social director Juan Carr, founder of Red Solidaria, said that nine people have died from hypothermia.
The latest fatality was a baby living with its family on the streets of Buenos Aires, a tragedy confirmed Saturday by authorities in the Argentine capital.
Besides these nine people who died as a direct result of the freezing temperatures, 33 people – 11 of them minors – have died so far this year from carbon monoxide poisoning due to faulty combustion in heating systems.
These deaths have occurred primarily in poor homes without adequate ventilation.
According to Carr, every year in Argentina between 80 and 100 people die from hypothermia or from breathing in carbon monoxide.
“In Buenos Aires some 1,400 people sleep on the streets and in all Argentina the people in that situation add up to about 20,000, with 60 percent of them men between 35 and 55 years of age,” the founder of Red Solidaria said.
Carr stressed the participation of young people – close to 500 – who for the last 47 nights have been going into the streets of Buenos Aires and its teeming outskirts, as well as in the cities of Mendoza, Cordoba and Bariloche, to find people living on the streets in order help them avoid hypothermia.
For the last three days freezing temperatures have affected the entire country, even bringing heavy snow to areas that rarely get any.
According to the latest Meteorological Service report, “the wave of cold air from the polar region continues to affect all Argentine territory with intense frost and temperatures as low as -14 C (7 F) in central Patagonia and the nation’s central region, and between 0 C (32 F) and -3 C (27 F) in northern Argentina.”
Meanwhile in central-western and northwestern provinces such as Mendoza, San Juan, Catamarca, La Rioja, Salta and Jujuy, “precipitation in the form of sleet and snow is being recorded,” the report said.
According to the Meteorological Service, the wave of cold air is forecast to continue at least until Sunday in the southern region of Patagonia, while in the rest of the country it will begin to dissipate gradually beginning Monday.
In the midst of the cold wave, consumer associations have reported problems with the supply of natural gas and a scarcity of gas cylinders, which, if they are found at all, are being sold at far higher prices than their official value.
Source: http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=360567&CategoryId=14093
