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CLIMATE CHANGE-ARGENTINA: Failing to Prepare for Foreseeable Floods

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 2 2007 (IPS) - Unusually heavy rainfall has once again highlighted the vulnerability of a vast area in eastern Argentina to the effects of climate change. The preliminary toll of the catastrophe is 12 deaths, tens of thousands of people evacuated, 3.5 million hectares of land under water, highways and roads flooded, and bridges down.

“It has been endlessly repeated that vulnerable cities must adapt to climate change, and Santa Fe is a city at risk of flooding,” said Jorge Capatto, director of the Fundación Proteger in Santa Fe, the capital of the province of the same name, which is the epicentre of the crisis. “But we haven’t learned the lesson, and we aren’t prepared for heavy rains,” he complained to IPS.

Global warming, caused by the collection in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases, which trap the sun’s heat, has manifested itself in this region in the form of heavier and more frequent rainfall followed by lengthy droughts -phenomena that society must take measures to prepare for, warn experts like Capatto.

According to the National Meteorological Service, the heavy storms that have mainly affected the eastern provinces of Santa Fe, Entre Ríos and Buenos Aires, as well as the southern part of the central province of Córdoba, brought an almost unprecedented amount of water.

But Capatto said that is no excuse: “There have always been heavy rains in the city of Santa Fe,” he underlined.

The rain that has fallen over the past week has turned an area equivalent to one-third of the city of Santa Fe, population 400,000, into a shallow lake.

The same part of the city was hit hard by a tragic flood in 2003, when the sheer force of the water led to the caving in of the banks of the Salado River and the deaths of 23 people as a result of the sudden flooding of the western side of the city. Some 130,000 people were evacuated during that flood.

Now the rivers that surround Santa Fe – the Salado and Paraná – are at manageable levels, but the rainwater that has accumulated in the neighbourhoods has no escape route due to the protective dykes around the city.

Capatto said Santa Fe is perhaps the city in Argentina with the greatest number of hydraulic engineers. In fact, Mayor Martín Balbarrey is one of them.

Despite that, the disaster was not avoided.

Balbarrey, who in his attempt to ward off a repeat of the 2003 tragedy recommended that local residents not wait for the water to rise over a metre before evacuating, recently admitted that he does not know how many drainage pumps the city has. “There are a good number, I’m not sure exactly how many” he told the press, after receiving 20 additional pumps.

“There’s a contingency plan, but that’s just on paper; no one really knows what they’re supposed to do,” said Capatto.

“The pumps do not work because of lack of proper maintenance and vandalism,” he added. Additional pumps had to be brought in from the cities of Chaco and Córdoba to deal with the emergency.

The problems in Santa Fe have been accentuated by the lack of prevention measures, as well as a lack of accountability, Capatto argued.

“Santa Fe suffers from floods because civil society is weak here and rewards with votes political leaders who should be held responsible for making sure these things don’t happen,” he said.

The activist complained that local authorities favour the urbanisation of at-risk areas by bringing piped water and electricity to the neighbourhoods, “where they have their loyal voters.” But they fail to follow up with preparations for emergencies, nor do they maintain the pumps and drainage systems, he added.

A total of 12 people have died in the flooding, including victims in the city of Santa Fe, the nearby city of Rosario in the province of Entre Ríos, and southern Córdoba.

In the province of Santa Fe, there are 59 flooded areas, a number of highways washed out by the rain, and several villages and small towns cut off. Several deaths occurred when precarious shacks on the banks of the Paraná River collapsed. Other victims were electrocuted or drowned.

The number of evacuees is calculated differently in each province. Some do not count families who left their homes by their own means and are staying with relatives or friends, rather than in the shelters set up by the authorities in government buildings, schools and churches.

But in the city of Santa Fe alone, where the largest number of people has been evacuated, the provincial government estimates that more than 32,000 people have left their homes.

However, Capatto said that if the families who left by their own means were counted as well, the real figure would be twice as high.

In Entre Ríos, the second most heavily affected district, the evacuees – both those who have turned to the shelters and those who are staying with family or friends – total 18,000.

In neighbourhoods on the west side of Santa Fe, there are homes with water up to the roof line, where fathers or mothers stayed behind because they want to keep their belongings from being stolen.

In the shelters, there is a shortage of mattresses, clothing and food.

The memories of the 2003 disaster are still fresh. “It’s terribly frustrating; it seems as if we learned nothing from that lesson,” complained Capatto.