This 2022 seems to have raged with this side of South America, which this Saturday woke up with 38 degrees temperature and a wind chill of 43. For many it is even worse because there are several towns without electricity for hours, especially in the capital, due to the high power demand.

While some pray for rain to fall from the sky, the situation is suffocating and worrying. As if from a movie, one could even describe the image of yesterday afternoon in the Argentine capital, where the sky turned orange due to the heat, coupled with a dense curtain of smoke from the forest fires that impact nine provinces.

Not even cold Patagonia is spared from the heat, although there thermometers reach 30 degrees, in some areas temperature records have also been registered.

Argentina is facing one of the most shocking heat waves in recent decades and is today one of the hottest places in the world. In the seaside resort of Mar del Plata, where many tourists flock to the beaches this summer, yesterday the thermometers marked above 41 degrees, the highest figure in 65 years.

For a week the country has been shaken by high temperatures. Santiago del Estero with 43.4 degrees, the Buenos Aires town of Punta Indio with 43.1, San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca with 42.6, the city of Buenos Aires with 41.5, is broadcast on television channels.

Temperatures are so overwhelming that even a reporter who was covering live for channel 9 the long lines to swab himself, due to the increase in cases of Covid-19, fell on the ground and had to be treated by medical personnel.

And that’s another dilemma. This first fortnight has already registered more cases of those infected by the pandemic than in the last two months, with peaks above 138 thousand daily.

Hectares devastated by fires like the one that started the day before in the Florentino Ameghino Municipal Nursery Forest in the Buenos Aires town of Miramar, flames also in the Paraná Delta, more than 44 thousand users without power at this time in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area. The scene looks Dantesque.

However, Argentineans, with that sharp humor that characterizes them, describe the situation with funny memes, images and phrases on social networks and while a large part lament the situation, some call to create awareness about the effect of climate change and others take it calmly.

“Year 2022 I told you to surprise me, don’t kill me with heat,” said one user on Twitter and another followed in her footsteps: if I make it to Monday, I’m going to make a shirt that says I survived the January 2022 heat wave.

ef/rgh/may