Blackout count: 3

The Power Supply Fluctuation Watch recorded a new event yesterday. Blackout #3 of the 2007/2008 season has been assigned the name Carlos. It began with minor drops of voltage just after sunset, followed by recovery, and ending with a large loss of voltage that lasted until the morning.

In other news, the outgoing government of Santa Fe led by Governor Jorge Obeid continues to appoint scores of its own officials, political allies, and friends and relatives of the governor, his cabinet, and influential former governor Carlos Reutemann, to high-ranking vacant posts in the public administration, the judiciary and the Provincial Power Company (Empresa Provincial de la Energía, EPE).

Sorrento power plant

On a related note, EPE workers and managers, despite being extremely well-paid, haven't had the time or the ability to repair the Sorrento thermoelectric power plant (located in the northeast of Rosario), which supplies 160 MW to the grid. After a terribly bad summer last year, Sorrento has been out of order for the last ten months, and though it was supposed to resume working in December, further repairs will push the date to early February, after the worst part of summer is over. The head of EPE, governor Obeid's cousin, was not available for comments.

EPE is said to have serious shortages of personnel in certain areas, while others are overpopulated by (or were just created especially to harbour) unqualified people appointed there in violation of regulations just because they have family or political contacts in the management. Wages paid by EPE are legendarily high. The company will close 2007 with an estimated AR$90 million deficit, double the figure of 2006, and will have to be asisted with government (i.e. taxpayers') money.

Since the Front for Victory lost the election in September, the provincial government has been cutting supplies to its public offices, and the quality of its services has gone downhill. This hasn't prevented the government party to advertise itself using the same posters that appeared during the campaign — huge colour prints boasting "4 years of hard work, without raising taxes". The Peronists seem to be determined not to leave a single coin, a single spare printer ink cartridge or a single made-up vacant post on their way out, and are turning the judiciary and the (formally) independent control offices into a minefield for the next administration.

Boy, this will take years to fix...

Storm and blackout season

The first storm of the season arrived in Rosario last Friday, October 26, at about 7:15 PM. If this is going to become the norm for mid-Spring and summer (and it certainly looks like it), we're in for a lot of trouble. At least we didn't get hail, like last year. Yet.

For some strange chance, I left home for Japanese school earlier than usual. I had hurried a bit in order to have a chance to go with my camera and take some sunset pictures before the class began. I packed my umbrella just in case. I realized I wouldn't be able to take pictures because it was cloudy, and I also realized I was hungry, so I left the camera at home, and when I arrived at the school, I sat down at the shokudō and asked Alicia-san for a piece of her delicious ricotta cake and a carton of juice to wash it down and cool myself (it was like 30 degrees!) while I waited for sensei to come.

Five minutes later I heard a loud whoosh outside, then another, and then all hell broke loose. It was as if a million giant rain machines up in the sky had been turned on at once. Gusts of wind over 100 km/h forced us to close the windows. Thunder and lightning shook the walls.

The fluorescent lights flickered and turned off for a couple of seconds while we were in class, then came back again. At 9 PM the class was over and it was still raining, though not heavily. I was wearing sandals, so I got my feet wet, but nothing else. As a classmate and I stumbled over broken tree branches, paddles filled with dirty water and leaves, and unexpected holes in the sidewalk, we saw an uprooted tree leaning against a house, and severed power cables dangling from the lines.

I got back to a pitch-dark neighbourhood lit only by passing cars and by the occasional shop that held on using a portable generator. At home, my family was having dinner with candles — nothing romantic about that.

The blackout lasted more than I'd expected, and in fact longer than any other previous blackout I can remember. Power came back after 25–26 hours. On Saturday I had plans to do a photo tour (I'll tell you about that later) and I had to visit a friend to charge the battery of my camera in his house. Since pictures are worth several orders of magnitude more than words, I'll let you see by yourselves.

Coverage:

• La Capital: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
• Rosario3: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
• Rosario/12: 1.
• La Nación: 1.
• Clarín: 1.
• 26Noticias: 1.
• Taringa! (with nice pictures): 1.
• YouTube video: 1.
  

Super summer storm!

Yesterday there was a terrible storm over a wide area between Rosario and Buenos Aires. Summer storms are commonly the product of several days of high temperature and humidity followed by the arrival of a cold front. The heat and the humidity had been so much that it rained cats and dogs for hours.

I've told you about climate change before. Ten, twenty years ago I remember these storms once every year, or even every two or three years. They were clearly unusual events. But extreme weather has become so frequent that we might as well revise what "extreme" means. Lately it seems that almost every storm is a catastrophe.

Yesterday's rain was accompanied by wind and lightning. The state of maintenance of our sewage pipes and our electrical grid is such that within the first hour of any significant storm, thousands are left without power and/or get their homes flooded. Soon after the storm released its fury, while I was in my office (it was 7:15 AM), lightning stroke nearby and blew off something in our phone line, so we're incommunicado now. Surprisingly, nothing else happened there or at home. However, when I came back I found that a group of people living in a shanty town beside an avenue about 10 blocks from home had blocked the street and organized a picket. The avenue was like a river of mud, and these people were (I guess) demanding attention from the authorities the only way they could, as they'd probably lost all their precarious furniture. The picket was still there today.

We haven't had more hail of the kind we got in November, but the weather has become a serious issue. People, especially people who own cars and use them every day, have developed an accute obsession with forecasts. Being caught in a storm might mean getting your car trapped in a flooded street, pounded by hailstones, or damaged by a falling tree limb. After a wave of criticism caused by its lack of quick warnings, the National Meteorological Service has upgraded its weather alert system, and every day paranoid rosarinos check the news and promptly inform their family and workmates (by word of mouth, phone or text message) as soon as they spot the words ALERTA METEOROLÓGICA.

Hail in Mendoza

Latest news of Argentina include a weather gone absolutely crazy. In the northwest of Argentina (provinces of Salta and Tucumán) it's been raining an awful lot, and the Salado River downstream in Santiago del Estero broke a dam and overflowed its banks, prompting many to evacuate (the Salado is a very long river — it starts up there and ends 1,500 km later in the Paraná River, near Santa Fe City, which it flooded in 2003). Last Wednesday 170 mm of rain fell in Reconquista (northern Santa Fe), flooding several parts of the city, its surroundings and many neighbouring towns in a matter of hours.

Last Friday, the city of San Rafael in Mendoza (a hot, sunny paradise when I was there two weeks ago) was hit by a hailstorm. Anti-hail nets protecting the vine crops were useless against the reportedly fist-sized hailstones that fell for about 25 minutes, and many saw their crops partly or completely ruined less than a month before the National Festival of the Vendimia (grape harvest). This, plus the damages in the city, may add up to about 50–60 million pesos (US$17–20 million). (Incidentally, if you want to know more about Mendoza's hail and wine, try Argenvino. I just discovered it — I was linked from it without my knowledge!)

(The above is a vineyard besides the Valentín Bianchi winery, not far from San Rafael City, as it was before the storm... I presume it doesn't look like that now.)

Deadly hail seems to have become more common everywhere lately (as you'll remember if you were in Rosario during November's hail hell). San Rafael had been hit already on 31 December 2006 and I seem to remember the area of Mendoza City had had its share a few days before my trip in early January.

Nobody died in San Rafael then or now, fortunately, but the mendocinos are clearly concerned to the point of having developed their own anti-hail rockets. The scientists of the Civil Institute of Space Technology created this rocket to replace the Russian-made devices that were in use before the devaluation of the Argentine peso made them unaffordable — and which were not very useful anyway, since they were designed to target clouds at a height of 8 km, while the typical clouds in Cuyo are above 15 km.


PS: As of 2 Feb, the national government has pledged to help Mendoza with AR$25 million, to be used to repair infrastructure and rebuild homes. Besides the immediate damage, the storm destroyed the fertility of 4,000 hectares of soil, which will be unproductive for 3 years.

What a day

First this...

And then this:


And that was only the weather...

Today's news in Rosario is that the provincial government will raise all public workers' salaries to a minimum of 1,000 pesos (~330 U.S. dollars), presumably with the corresponding increase for higher salaries as well, and the proportion of our salaries that do not contribute to our pension funds and the like will be reduced. This was ostensibly to calm down the teachers, some of whom were getting less than AR$1,000, and get them not to go on strike at the beginning of school period 2007; I find it difficult since Santa Fe's teachers have always gone on strike asking for higher salaries every year since I learn to write mamá (it was my mom who taught me), no matter what their real salary is, and no matter that they've returned from long vacations in Mar del Plata.

Today's news in Argentina also has to do with money, but with money lost instead of gained. The Supreme Court, after exactly 1,850 days, has decreed that the corralito and the subsequent "peso-ification" of U.S.-denominated bank accounts at a fixed rate of AR$1.40 to US$1, two desperate measures taken in 2001 and 2002 to avoid a massive loss of foreign currency reserves and a huge inflation spike, were not unconstitutional. People's savings in dollars were trapped back then so they couldn't withdraw them and send them abroad and/or hastily convert them to pesos producing a catastrophic hyperdepreciation and a hyperinflation. You could get your savings only in pesos, only in small amounts, and the exchange rate was fixed by the government at 1.4 to 1, even as the dollar was already much above that (it reached AR$3.8 per unit) . Much later, the banks were given orders to allow the free withdrawal of pesos, valued at 1.4 per 1 dollar, plus an additional amount given by a coefficient called CER, which includes inflation. The Court has now decreed that the savings holders must be paid AR$1.4 per US$1 + CER + an additional 4% of interest, which nicely rounds up to AR$3 and small change, coincidentally the current exchange rate to the dollar in the free market. Thus, the Justices said speculating on whether the peso-ification was legal or not is abstract and useless -- problem solved.

To many people who said that these measures were horrible violations of the property right and of basic legal principles, the Court replied that it was OK because it was an emergency... I'll tell why I think this is basically correct another day.

Night out with the boys

I don't usually do advertising for free, but I thought this would merit some. Last Saturday night I went with some friends to a bar that one of them had visited once long ago. Nenina is on a corner of the northern Costanera (the avenue that follows the Paraná River starting just north of the city center), close to the impressive arc of the Rosario-Victoria Bridge, maybe 300 m south of Circunvalación Avenue and the municipal limit. Not many people go there on purpose, since the "good" parts of Costanera are on the middle section, full of open-air bars, discos, and the beach. Once you get to Nenina, you either stop there or have to turn back, or at most make in a wide detour to go up to Circunvalación, on the bridge, and across the maze of islands and river arms, eastward, to Entre Ríos.

I tell you, this bar should be in tourist guidebooks. Rosario's been working on that field lately, initially much to the surprise of us locals, but I still have to see a guide with a list of those small places that make a city special — those curious spots that most people don't know about and that you get news of only by word of mouth.

Nenina can be a bar like any other, where you can order a pizza or a carlitos (a hot sandwich with cheese, ham, and ketchup, optionally plus tomato slices, hard-boiled egg, mayonnaise, etc., not a tostado as in Buenos Aires) and down it with a beer... but that would be an awful waste. The place specializes in cocktails, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic; its menu is about 70% drinks. It's not cheap, but it's not expensive either; and the service is so good that it makes the money seem unimportant. These guys prepare a drink like a chef prepares a favourite dish.

My friends and I sampled a few cocktails and were pleased about the quality and variety. It's not that simple to have a place in a small establishment (that already needs to cook and serve regular bar/restaurant food and drink) to store a sufficient amount of several icecream flavours, several types of fresh fruit (lemon, orange, pineapple, watermelon, strawberry...), a lot of alcoholic beverages, and slightly more exotic ingredients (Tabasco sauce for Bloody Maries, fresh leaves of hierba buena for mojitos). The drinks do take a while to come, since the place seems to be packed all the time. We arrived a bit late and couldn't get a table outside — the outside is another bar! — so we went inside, which was a bit hot. That (lack of a) choice proved the best, since one hour later it started raining... and raining... and then there was something like a hurricane. Indeed, with the icecream cocktails and the margaritas to the tune of Gloria Stefan, I felt like I was in the Caribbean during the hurricane season. Naturally, at this point the people drinking outside had to get in or leave, so the place became slightly more packed; but the wind cooled the inside of the place.

The storm went on and on... You could see the trees buckling and hear the curtains of rain hitting the roof and the windows. Mind you, we had no wheels to go back. None of us owns a car, and anyway nobody in Rosario goes out by car anymore if they plan to drink alcohol. We got to the place by bus and had to get out like that; a taxi from such a distant place to anyone's house would've been too expensive (not in an emergency, but this wasn't one, and we'd forked more than a few pesos already). We waited (Bloody Mary) and waited (more Bloody Mary) and as the storm subsided a bit we decided to brave the drizzle and go up six or seven blocks to Roundeau Boulevard, where we'd be able to catch plenty of buses. That was a mistake. Two blocks after that the drizzle turned into a deluge, as the huge low-pressure center above us sucked in more clouds. The storm reassembled and we had to seek shelter in a porch. Forty-five minutes later the rain stopped (mostly). Off we went to get our bus.

Long story short, I arrived home much later, wet and shivering. Good news is that my immune system seems to have toughened; after a string of colds in last autumn and winter, I didn't catch anything...

The perfect storm

If you're really into this blog, which I doubt, you may have noticed that your intrepid host has not posted anything in the last three days. In part that was due to Real Life™ concerns and, thankfully, fun things to do elsewhere, but the terrible heat was a major factor. The lack of air conditioning in my computer room (which won't be remedied during this summer, unless Santa brings me something I didn't ask for, or the reader helps with a donation) made it impossible to survive in there, and my PC wasn't happy either. Yesterday the temperature in Rosario reached 36 degrees Celsius and the heat index was 43 °C.

Our very own Ayami sensei, which gave me classes during half of 2005, leaves for Japan after two years of serving as a volunteer in Argentina, so she was having her 送別会 (soubetsukai, farewell party). I took a much-needed shower with room temperature (i.e. warm) water, put on as little clothing as decently possible, and headed off for the Japanese Association party room, which has no A/C but does stay cooler than the rest of the building. Food was eaten, drinks were drunk, speeches were given, and just when I was leaving, Valeria sensei, my first teacher, who was trying (fruitlessly) to take in some fresh air just outside the room, noted that a storm was gathering; a few rain drops had already fallen.

By the time I got to the bus stop, just across an intersection from the Bus Terminal, the wind was rather strong. Dirt and leaves were flying; you could feel tiny things hitting your legs and arms. I patiently waited for a bus or a taxi, a bit jealous of the hordes of teenagers who filled the area as they prepared to go to bars and discos (it was about 1:30 AM). A group of people was sitting with a couple of beers in an outdoor table in the bar at the corner of Cafferata & Santa Fe St. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew off the large parasol on their table. The thing took the plastic table, the bottles, the glasses and one chair with it, and ended up in front of a car, which had fortunately stopped at the traffic lights. At this point I started seriously fearing that I could be hit by things more dangerous than dirt and leaves, so I retreated to a safer spot.

To cut a long story short, after a stop in the way via another bus and several failed attempts at getting a taxi, I got home more than one hour later, as the dirt storm had turned into a deluge. Based on my limited knowledge of meteorology, this was the feared pampero, a wind storm that is produced when a mass of cold air from the south meets a front of hot humid air from the north. It blows SW–NE and can be "clean" (wind only), "dirty", or "wet" (or, as in last night's case, first dirty and then wet...). Quite naturally, there are broken tree branches, interrupted power and telephone lines, and obstructed sewer pipes here and there. The storm hit the whole area around the Plata-Paraná river basin, so Buenos Aires got some too.

Ripples of 11/15

The hailstorm brought out a lot of things, and the repercusions and associations keep coming in waves. This will be history.

Remember the accusations that people benefitted with relief packages were reselling their corrugated metal sheets? Well, yesterday I said there was only one such incident confirmed. The person in question was arrested. But it appears there were more than a few others, and not only metal sheets but also mattresses were sold for a few pesos by avivados, mostly to other poor people who lost their roof and their bedroom furniture too, but who were forgotten by the authorities. To make things worse, it continued to rain today. The storm brought out the worst from the sewers and from some of the people.

On the other hand, good ideas can also come from catastrophes. Rosario has a municipal program of organic vegetable gardens, grown in small lots in the suburbs, by hand and without any pesticides. These gardens were severely affected by the hail, so the Urban Agriculture Programme launched the Vale Verde, a bill worth 10 pesos in vegetables from these gardens (at 2 pesos per kilo). The Vale Verde is sold at Rosario's Vegetable Fairs and will be exchanged between 15 February and 15 April 2007; by buying beforehand, you can help the gardeners cope with the lack of cash during the summer months.

Yet on the other hand, the taxi drivers (and more so the taxi owners) are showing their complete lack of empathy with the rest of the population of Rosario in not one, not two, but three different ways. First, they got mad at the idea of the municipality of licensing 500 more cabs to increase the offer (this after they judicially blocked a bill forcing taxi owners to hire new employees so as to work the service 16 out of 24 hours per day). Second, they demanded a fee increase of 50% (@#!?), mere months after getting a 30% increase, taking it to the levels of Buenos Aires (though in BA taxis do work). And third, they had the gall to ask for government money to repair the cabs damaged by the hail, and they're complaining that they didn't get it. Of course, they want a higher fee and free repairs not to provide a better service, but to stay as they are, comfortably living off a high-demand market.

Finally, the latest "ripple effect" of the hail is something I'd mentioned briefly before, which is that it's become easier to start a conversation with anyone, provided you haven't seen them since before that Black Wednesday. You only have to ask casually, "So, what did the hail do to you?". It's not a pick-up line or anything but it does break the ice... No pun intended.

The first victim of the hail

A bit more about the aftermath of the hail. It appears that the blockades set up in the streets to demand "disaster relief" are now mostly gone, and the government's strategy of doing nothing (save keeping some policemen in the distance), which I criticized in a previous post of mine, was eventually correct. With the rain that's been falling since yesterday night and all through Sunday (it's 6:20 PM now), and since relief has been provided and the problems caused by the blocks have been addressed, they became pointless and unsustainable.


Some had suspected that there are political and pseudo-political movements out there trying to incite disorder; the mayor said it, and now the provincial police has obtained proof of at least one such attempts: several calls were made by two men last Friday to provincial and city government offices, to four schools, to radio stations and other places, warning that looting had started in parts of southern Rosario (rekindling the fears of 1989 and 2001). Fortunately, this disinformation campaign failed, mostly. If this had been 1989 (with hyperinflation and shortage of food in supermarkets) or 2001 (with peak unemployment, recession and a crippling shortage of cash), it might have worked. Mind you, the news about Argentina's spectacular economic recovery are all written from the advantageous POV of middle-class society and up; but the poor are not that many or that desperate today.

More disinformation was spread by the media (I'm not blaming them, as they're only as good as their worst sources) in the last few days. For example, there was the repeated denunciation that some recipients of relief were selling their new corrugated metal sheets -- which was true, but so far I've only read one proven account of this. There was also the radio announcement (multipled by word-of-mouth) that there had been hail in several small towns and cities around Rosario, the idea being that we were in for another catastrophe while the mess was still incompletely cleaned up; it was all false.

We had some, light hail yesterday afternoon (nothing like the other day), and then after dark there was a lot of rain that continued thorought the night. I had to brave it for four blocks as I went from a friend's house to the bus stop, hopping over puddles and over streets turned rivers, but it was nothing serious. We're going to have much rain this summer, I guess.

Good news in short

Last week's news are like a parade of horrors, and I haven't mentioned half of them. So we need some good news.

• Tomorrow it will be (according to the National Meteorological Service) hot as hell in Rosario, but Sunday it will be cool (cooler than spring should be, but let that be a lesson on how we mustn't put away coats and long-sleeve shirts).
• Argentina will earn more from foreign tourists coming to the country than it loses from Argentinians spending money abroad for the first time this year, since those statistics are compiled (1992).
• In a brave display of imagination that we almost never witness in a politician, Deputy Mónica Prato of Córdoba will protest the lack of compliance of Córdoba Province's government with the national law that mandates free (as in beer and as in speech) tubal ligation for all women. She will do this by going to two public hospitals and requesting that her tubes are tied, threatening to go to court if her request is not granted. Good for her.
• Yesterday the sky turned ominously dark and people got scared. Everybody drove their cars under cover and lowered their blinders, waiting for the coup de grace..., but it didn't hail again.
• Bailando por un sueño will have a "blond vs. brunette" dancing duel live with Eliana Guercio and Evangelina Carrozzo, which is good news for some, but more importantly, I can watch another channel -- I don't have to stupefy my brains to endure such a horrid display of bad taste, and I can see non-paid girls far more beautiful and less disgracefully slutty than those two by just taking a walk downtown.
  

That's it. It's a bit sad that I had to look around for good news (yes, there's that journalist maxim that says "good news is no news"), but I did collect enough for one blog post. Cheers!

Aftermath of the hail

This is the story of a still unfolding tragedy. You've already watched the first act, but there's sadly much more.

Act 1: a horrible hail storm hits Rosario. People get hurt, windows get smashed, precarious homes get destroyed. Damages for US$270 million.

Act 2: While people with cars and windows line up before glass shops and get charged suddenly increased prices, people with no cars and no windows desperately ask for help from the government (tin roofs to repair their homes, mattresses to replace those ruined by the rain, etc.).

Act 3: Government workers are sent to assess the damages in the poor neighbourhoods, and the requirements of their residents are recorded and forewarded to the authorities. Surprisingly, the goods are delivered more or less in time.

Act 4: Unsatisfied because they want more or angry because they've been ignored, groups of poor people set up pickets blocking important roads in the peripherical areas of Rosario. Other groups move from their old homes and squat on abandoned public and private lands.

Act 5: A policeman trying to redirect traffic at a busy intersection blocked by a picket is hit by a car and dies a few days later. People in charge of the emergency relief operation report that the pickets are making it impossible to distribute the goods. Indignant neighbours denounce that some are selling their relief packages instead of using it.

This is about the point up to where this tragedy has devolved. Mayor Liftschitz said today, probably with reason, that the picketeers are being (at least) encouraged, if not led, by minority political factions. We've come to know those; they're the kind that always emerge when it's time to burn tires, and who pass as defenders of the poor, when they're in fact borderline criminals with nothing better to do and a very, very skewed left-wing ideology.

The provincial government, which manages the police, has stated through the Government Minister Roberto Rosúa that the street blocks will be handled "through consensus and peaceful means", only employing police force in the case of crimes committed by the picketeers, such as charging cars with a "toll fee" to let them pass unscathed through the blockades. Rosúa, who has excelled at being useless in several ministries under two administrations, seems not to notice that blocking a street with burning tires is a crime. Like the national government in the case of Gualeguaychú, the Santa Fe Provincial Government prefers to look away, fearful of legitimate repression (maybe because they did engage in illegitimate repression not so long ago and were exposed). Or may it be because problems in Rosario make the ruling Socialist Party administration look bad?

In case you haven't noticed already, I consider myself a leftist. I was born under the shadow of the latest dictatorship, which used violence against popular dissidence of any kind, and I hate the use of force against the weak and the poor. I also know that the Argentine police, all of it, is corrupt, brutal, tainted with all sorts of human rights abuses not committed then, but being committed now, everywhere. And I, yes, I want the police to suffocate those pickets, to look for their leaders and bring them to justice. This is not a protest, it's some greedy lowlife politician wannabe rallying the ignorant to see if s/he can get money and goods from the government. This could be done today or tomorrow in an hour, without firing a single bullet, and the money and the goods could reach those who really need it -- 10% of the population of Rosario lives in shanty towns, and they're not all disrupting traffic and threatening drivers. Why do we still put up with this?

Hail hell in Rosario

Rosario woke up today licking its wounds after the worst hailstorm anyone can remember. After days of abnormally high temperatures, yesterday the weather turned overcast, then wind started to blow. Faraway thunder could be heard, and lightning flashed behind a veil of black clouds. My cat came up sniffing the air intently, her body tense and ready to escape, and then disappeared somewhere... At about 5:30 PM, before any rain had fallen, hail the size of billiard balls started pounding roofs and windows. That lasted 10 minutes. Rain joined in soon, winds up to 115 km/h propelling it (and the hail) almost horizontally at times. It stopped soon enough, and then, an hour or so later, it started again.

Right before the beginning of the storm, power went out in my house and around. We took out candles and matches, unplugged all the electrical appliances, and waited. The hail was a surprise, though. I initially heard some horrific pounding on nearby roofs, a sound of broken glass here and there, and then it come in full force; I had just enough time to lower all the metal blinders to protect the windows.

Someone got a battery-powered radio and we listened to the disaster report. One hundred people wounded, hospitals' ERs full, buildings' glass facades completely destroyed, pigeons falling dead from trees like leaves. Fixed telephone lines were down in many places, the cell phone network collapsed by message traffic. One fourth of the city's buses, tens of taxis, ambulances and power company vans, out of order because of broken glasses (and of course, queues in front of glass shops). Trees severely damaged or uprooted. Sewers blocked by branches and leaves, streets turned into streams of dirty water. Precarious roofs punctured by hail or simply blown off. Forty-thousand people without power. One person dead, hit by a car in a hurry to escape. And, as of the latest update, between 30 and 100% losses in wheat, corn and soybean crops in the region.

La Capital gave it a special cover and titled it Tarde de terror ("Afternoon of terror"). El Ciudadano, somewhat more imaginatively (if with a bit of misplaced humour) Ira de hielo ("Wrath of ice", a play on Era de Hielo, "Ice Age"). Rosario/12 named it Ciudad azotada ("Scourged city").


So today there are no classes in public and private schools, as many are without power, others are being used to held refugees, and some got all their glasses broken and/or were flooded. The mayor, the vice-governor and other authorities gathered a Crisis Committee. The mayor commented that his office's windows were broken and he'd never seen anything like this in 50 years (my father claims "this was nothing compared to the storm I saw when I was 20", but then, he says that about everything). Even Buenos Aires newspapers mentioned the storm, which is extremely unusual (given that anything beyond Greater Buenos Aires is considered less than their backyard by porteños).

The hail was up to 10 cm in diameter, and we can count ourselves fortunate that the storm laster only 10 minutes. I feel fortunate in particular because if my Japanese class had started two hours before, I would've been caught right in the middle of hell. My brother came home after it; it took him one hour (rather than the usual 40 minutes) in an over-full bus that had to take detours and drive very carefully.

I left home this morning for work (still without power) and I found the sidewalks covered with Platanus leaves. A couple of windows in my office had broken and some rain got into a monitor and a power plug, so we waited a bit before trying to turn anything on. One of my co-workers got her appartment's windows shattered; another one, who teaches in a university, says a roof there collapsed. Nobody got hurt, fortunately.

I wrote this in my office, I power has not returned at home (I just checked with my brother -- at least the phone works!). We often have these blackouts, but they usually last only a few hours. It's entirely possible that this may last a lot more. I'm now uploading at a cybercafé. (Sounds like a battlefield report, doesn't it?). I have some pictures taken at home yesterday, but they'll be locked up in my camera for a while.

PS: Power's back! Wow, 10 hours without electricity seems like eternity. I'm adding some pictures of mine and others.

PPS: And here's a video: