MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Storm kills five, blackouts Argentina's second city

Five people, including two children, died and at least 47 others have been injured in the storm that is battering central Argentina, which was recently hit by the worst drought in the past 50 years, officials said Tuesday.

Four people, one of them a teenager, died in the city of Rosario and a girl died in the town of San Pedro in the torrential rains that started Monday night. Rosario was lashed by intense rain and winds of more than 90 kilometres which uprooted hundreds of trees and destroyed power lines causing a blackout which left the almost one million residents with no electricity. Rosario is located 300 kilometres north of Buenos Aires and is the second most important city of Argentina. Surrounded by rich farmland it's considered the soybean hub of Argentina, Paraguay and southern Brazil, and is also where the current world football star Leonel Messi was born and raised. The two young men were killed and dozens injured when a tent with the capacity to hold 8,000 people collapsed in Rosario. The tent, which was erected by an evangelical church, crushed a 22-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy, officials said, adding that two women and an 11-year-old boy were hospitalized with fractures. Two men were also electrocuted in separate incidents. The emergency management office said the storm's heavy rains and strong winds flooded streets, left vehicles stranded, toppled trees and ripped off roofs, especially in poor areas. Meteorologists predict that the worst of the storm has passed but more rain is expected until the weekend.