Saturday, October 23, 2010

Tornado

[from Latin American Herald Tribune, 10/23/10]

At Least 4 Dead, 100 Injured in Northern Argentina Tornado

BUENOS AIRES – At least four people were killed, two are missing and 100 were injured by a tornado that struck the town of Pozo del Tigre in the northern Argentine province of Formosa, police officials said Friday.

Nestor Amarilla, Formosa’s regional chief of police, told the state news agency Telam that the fatalities included a 1-year-old baby, an elderly man of 87, and two women ages 19 and 28.

Several of the injured had to be taken to Formosa province’s like-named capital at some 1,140 kilometers (708 miles) north of Buenos Aires on the Paraguay border due to their grave condition, Formosa Health Minister Anibal Gomez said.

Most of the injured, he said, suffered head or thorax wounds, broken bones or internal lesions.

The approximately 80 percent of the town’s 10,000 inhabitants who were affected had no electricity or telephone service Thursday night, while still unknown is the amount of damage the tornado inflicted on nearby indigenous villages, which the torrential rains have made inaccessible.