MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Punta Arenas hit by hurricane force winds, half the city with no power

Luckily there were no victims, only a few citizens with minor injuries, according to the mayor of the city Claudio Radonich.(Pic ATON)

Punta Arenas extreme south of Chile was hit on Thursday by hurricane-force winds that left a trail of blown roofs, half the city without power, the collapse of several walls, and uprooted trees in city streets.

 Apparently the violent climate event took off at 11:00 in the morning and lasted until 15:00 with gales of up to 113 kilometers per hour causing the damage described. Luckily there were no victims, only a few citizens with minor injuries, according to the mayor of the city Claudio Radonich.

Meteorologist Nicolas Butorovic said the strong winds were caused by a low pressure front moving in from the Drake Passage and which stabilized over Punta Arenas. “These phenomena are not unusual, it happened in 2018 during three days with gales of up to 108kms per hour, and previously in 2014, when winds reached 134kms per hour”.

The event also left 15,000 homes in central and south Punta Arenas with no power, traffic lights are not working and there was a blackout of the fixed phones lines. While the worst of the storm is believed to have taken place, the Yellow Alert remains since the phenomenon is expected to continue, much milder, until early Friday, Butorivuc explained.

Meantime the elected governor of Magallanes Region Jorge Flimes declared the climate and environment emergency in the region.

On justifying the decision, Flies said he was well aware of the intergovernmental climate change report, which in its introduction tells us of the irreversible and irrefutable climate change worldwide with a huge impact, and one of the countries most affected is Chile with this dreadful major drought in the north and center of the country. Given the bio diversity of Magallanes, “we want to be ahead of that process in a joint public/private effort”.