RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Several points of Montevideo dawned flooded this Monday, and dozens of streets of the capital were flooded by heavy rains recorded early this morning.
“Due to the heavy rains recorded in the last hours, flooding was detected in different areas of the city. Our crews have been working since early morning, and we have made available all their resources to address an unprecedented issue,” the Municipality of Montevideo posted on its Twitter account.
According to the director of the Departmental Emergency Coordination Center (Cecoed) of Montevideo, Jorge Cuello, the entire capital was affected by the rains, with greater flooding in the areas of ravines and streams. The areas with the most significant problems are Malvín Norte, Municipality A (especially the Cerro neighborhood), and Municipality C (especially Colón). This situation worsened because the “runoff” of water is more difficult with the dry state of the land, a consequence of several days of intense heat with little rainfall.
Montevideo is until noon under an orange alert from the National Institute of Meteorology (Inumet) for rains and storms and has already recorded between 50 and 100 millimeters of rain in the last hours, with greater activity between 5 and 7 am.
The situation has generated several power outages in the capital. At 10:45 am, Uruguay’s National Administration of Power Plants and Electric Transmissions (UTE) reported 10,367 affected customers without power, 1.8% of the service, due to 49 incidents in the city.
On Twitter, dozens of users uploaded videos showing the severity of the floods.