Argentina is suffocating. For almost two weeks, the South American country has suffered a heat wave. Nationally, it’s the hottest summer since 1961, and the statistics keep being rewritten for the month of March: 38°C on March 3 in Buenos Aires, according to the National Meteorological Service (SMN), the highest temperature ever recorded in this date .
Unprecedented situations call for unusual solutions. A school in Rosario has decided to allow children to wear bathing suits so they can spray them at recess, local media reported Monday. A good compromise, while other schools in the country have chosen to keep the door closed until the mercury goes down.
“We have sent a note to families telling them that from today the uniform will no longer be mandatory until the alert ends, so children are encouraged to come with comfortable clothes, they can come in a bathing suit, sandals, with light clothing. top”, explains Marian Sanchez, director of the Francisco Gurruchaga school, to BFMTV.
it’s not a game
To this measure we must add that the students, at various times of the day, go out into the patio to cool off with the help of a garden hose. It is also a way of addressing the issue of climate change with them.
“You have to see it from the point of view of learning,” director Marian Sánchez told the media this time. The capital. “We have never seen (heat) like this, and the school must respond,” she said.
“Students cool off with a garden hose on their heads, I want to be clear, they cool off, they don’t play with running water,” he warns again.
unprecedented heat wave
In addition to the high temperatures, this heat wave brings its share of inconveniences. In many neighborhoods of the Buenos Aires suburbs, power outages occur, which are not uncommon in summer, due to the strong demand on the network, such as the 200,000 homes without power on February 10, a particularly hot day.
“A heat wave is part of normal climate variability. But with climate change, more persistent and intense waves are being observed everywhere. And in Argentina, they also occur in Patagonia”, explains Enzo Campetella, an independent expert meteorologist. On February 9, the mercury had reached 42°C in Patagonia.
In fact, the heat wave is not only abnormal for the month of March, but also for “its duration, seven days in Buenos Aires” instead of three on average, underlines Cindy Fernández, a meteorologist for the SMN.
Source: BFM TV
