Local authorities have declared a State of Emergency throughout the province of Tucumán in northwest Argentina after several days of heavy rainfall caused rivers to overflow and increased the threat of landslides in the area.
Around 300 families have already been evacuated in the southern part of the province. Authorities have told around 7,000 more people that they may also need to evacuate their homes should levels of the nearby Marapa river rise further. Most of those affected are located in Graneros and La Madrid, an area which suffered from major flooding in 1992, affecting around 10,000 people.
According to Tucuman government, dozens of trucks and buses were in place, ready and waiting to carry out an evacuation operation unprecedented in the area. The government of Tucumán say that the entire population of La Madrid could be evacuated.
Governor of Tucumán, José Alperovich, said, “We will try to evacuate all if water continues to rise…we are on full emergency”.
Local leader Dardo Herrera told Telam, the state news agency, “we are prepared to face a very complicated situation and there is no history of an operation of this magnitude in our people.”
According to Telam, levels of the Escaba dam were so high yesterday 09 March 2015 that it was necessary to open the flood gates, which could further complicate the situation.
Tucumán is the fourth province in Argentina to be hit by flooding in this month. Yesterday FloodList reported that at least 12 people have been killed in the flooding that affected the three provinces of Cordoba, Santa Fe and Santiago del Estero in Argentina over the last 10 days.
