MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina; Smoke cloud engulfs Buenos Aires for 5th day

Satellite images showed wind carrying a swath of white smoke over the capital and across the River Plate as far as Uruguay.

President Cristina Fernandez surveyed more than 200 raging brush fires by air, vowing to prosecute anyone who lit the blazes that have sent smoke billowing across the capital, clouding highways and grounding jetliners.

People must be held responsible for this," Fernandez said after riding in a helicopter Saturday over cattle ranches and farms north of Buenos Aires, where hundreds of firefighters worked with the army to extinguish the fast-moving flames. Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo and Environmental Minister Romina Picolotti urged Argentina's judiciary to investigate owners of charred farmland, to see if fires were intentionally set by some farmers to clear scrub brush on the cheap. Two people have been arrested in an arson investigation, and more than 15 search warrants have been issued to inspect private farm property, Randazzo said. The farmers have responded angrily, saying the government is blaming them for political reasons. They say the charge is designed to distract attention from a row over tax rises on farm exports. Farmers, who dumped soy and grains on highways to protest export taxes levied on their crops in mid-March, insisted that the recent fires were unrelated to their 21-day strike, which was suspended April 2. No one is known to have died in the flames, but at least seven motorists were killed in pileups on rural routes made hazy with smoke. The fires are raging just 45 miles north of the city and radiate out into the country's Entre Rios and Santa Fe provinces. Foul-smelling smoke has shrouded the capital's iconic Obelisk and obscured skyscrapers in a crisis unprecedented in Buenos Aires. Residents flocked to doctors with respiratory and eye irritation. Police declared a "highway emergency" on Friday and Saturday, closing key roadways from the capital and enforcing slow-driving zones to prevent multi-car pileups. The smoke also forced air traffic as controllers to reroute planes away from the city's two main airports.