MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Montevideo under water following unprecedented heavy rains

Social media users had been reporting all night that the situation was getting critical in different areas

Some areas in the city of Montevideo dawned Monday literally under water following unprecedented heavy rains which caused damages to various homes and a traffic chaos, in addition to power outages, which reportedly affected some 12,000 users.

The storm reached its fiercest moment at around 6am, although social media users had been reporting all night that the situation was getting critical in different areas.

Sources from Uruguay's weather agency Inumet quoted by local media reported unofficially that in two hours more than 100 millimeters of rain had fallen in Montevideo. In two hours Montevideo experienced what usually takes a whole month to fall, it was reported.

Some areas of the department of Canelones also recorded between 100 and 120 millimeters of rainfall while in Montevideo, particularly in the downtown as well aas in the Malvín area showed between 80 and 100 of fallen rains.

Montevideo's City Council said relief crews were working overtime to restore normalcy at the earliest.

“Due to the intense rains that have been recorded in the last few hours, flooding has been detected in different areas of the city. Our crews have been working since dawn and we have made all their resources available to deal with an unprecedented issue,” the Montevideo Mayor's Office said on Twitter.

Montevideo de primer mundo de la Intendenta @CosseCarolina.

Duele ver nuestra ciudad bajo agua, vecinos intentando salvar sus casas y pertenencias.

Esto pasa cuando el Frente Amplio habla y habla de planes de limpieza y nunca los implementa.

¡TUVIERON 30 AÑOS PARA HACERLO! pic.twitter.com/7VDM14B3G9

— Matías Torres Maneiro (@MatiasTM71) January 17, 2022

Montevideo's Director of the Departmental Emergency Coordination Center (Cecoed) Jorge Cuello explained the entire city had been affected. The dry state of the land, resulting from several days of intense heat with little precipitation, added to the Uruguayan capital's plight.

Montevideo was under an Inumet orange alert Monday, while the National Directorate of Firefighters reported the first critical events began at 5:30 am, and that by 6:25 am their telephone lines had collapsed by over 30 simultaneous requests for help. As of 10:30 am, 193 separate events caused by the floods had been recorded: 148 evacuation requests and 37 fallen trees.