Cold leaves at least 82 dead in South America

The cold that hit South America caused the death of livestock in areas of Brazil and Paraguay. It’s also a declaration of an agricultural emergency in southern Chile and a cancellation or suspension dozens of regional flights at the airport “Jorge Newbery” from Buenos Aires, where hundreds of tourists remain stranded now.

In Argentina there are thirteen dead due to hypothermia and carbon monoxide poisoning.

The country recorded since the beginning of the cold wave, 33 victims from carbon monoxide poisoning, by use of artifacts or defective heating facilities.

In Bolivia, the cols caused 18 deaths, half of them residents of the city of El Alto, next to La Paz.

In Brazil, nine people, mostly indigent homeless, died in southern following a cold snap that dropped temperatures to unusually low levels in several cities, including some of the tropical region of the Amazon.

In Santiago, Chile, polar cold wave caused two deaths, temperatures dropped to two degrees Celsius below zero, while in the south of the country the population is in a critical situation by heavy snowfall.

Paraguay Police informed today the 80 years old man death by hypothermia in Ita City. Consequently the number of dead increased to five by the cold wave that is affecting the country for more than a week.

In Uruguay, for the time authorities reported two deaths due to low temperatures this weekend and in Peru 104 people died because of pneumonia and respiratory ailments, caused by the cold and poor medical care.