01/24/2021 19:26
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 01/24/2021 7:26 PM
Garbage bags float, there is a rotten smell and at times you can see dead fish.
But heat is stronger than fear and despite being prohibited by pollution, a large number of people went into the Río de la Plata to cool off.
The San Isidro and Vicente López coasts were two of the areas where more people were observed in the water.
As if it were the Bristol beach in Mar del Plata,
some with ice cream makers and blankets went to the river to take a dip.
The reality is that the water is contaminated and there has been a ban for several decades to bathe.
A tour of Clarín in February 2020 already warned about this situation.
Every time it is very hot, the neighbors come to immerse themselves in those waters.
As in Mar del Plata.
Many people went to the Río de la Plata because of the heat.
Photo Marcelo Caroll.
And this Sunday in January was no exception.
With the 35 degrees that the thermometer reached, on the Costanera de Vicente López you could even see
tents and umbrellas among the stones and sand of that beach.
The same in San Isidro, with entire families bathing in the Río de la Plata.
Children hand in hand with their parents, brothers who jumped the small waves that the wind formed.
Although the prohibition was established with ordinances from the 70s in the City of Buenos Aires and GBA municipalities such as Vicente López and San Isidro, the thousands of people who come to the river every summer to cool off make controls difficult for the authorities of each district and the personnel of the Prefecture.
Ice cream parlors, umbrellas and tents on the Vicente López coast.
Photo Marcelo Caroll.
"Taking out one by one is almost impossible,"
the authorities told this newspaper.
For this reason, there are face-to-face controls that take care, above all, that there are no risks of drowning.
Ricardo Teijeiro, infectious disease doctor and member of the Argentine Society of Infectious Diseases (SAI), had told in February of last year the dangers that a person can suffer from contamination: “The skin is always a good defense mechanism against microbes when there are some wound, except in the places where the infection is more frequent.
There the microbe can enter and it can also be complicated with more serious skin infections ”.
"It must be taken into account that in contaminated water there is another risk, such as eye infection (conjunctivitis), ear infections (otitis), as well as gastroenteritis," Teijeiro warned, adding: "If you consume the water, because when swimming many times it is swallowed, you can also have gastrointestinal risks ”.
Entire families bathed in the Río de la Plata although it is prohibited by pollution.
Photo Marcelo Caroll.
Walking along the rocky beach you see diapers, glass and plastic bottles, potato chip wrappers and jars.
Debris also floats in the water.
But none of that stopped those who searched the Río de la Plata for the best place to beat the violet warning that the National Meteorological Service launched during the day.
AFG