Historic snow wrecks Buenos Aires
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Historic snow wrecks Buenos Aires
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Scott Jagow: Now let’s go way down South, to Argentina — it snowed last night in Buenos Aires. The city hasn’t seen snow like this since before Eva Peron was born. From the America’s Desk at WLRN, Dan Grech reports.
Dan Grech: The first major snowstorm in 89 years fell on a national holiday — the 9th of July, Argentina’s Independence Day. Residents celebrated with snowmen and fender-benders, while radio stations played an old tango song celebrating the 1918 snowfall.
But the country’s economy wasn’t celebrating. Argentina’s coldest winter in 40 years has spurred a massive energy crisis.
Michael Casey is Buenos Aires bureau chief for Dow Jones. He says price controls on utility bills, combined with four years of rapid growth, have spurred an energy crunch.s.
Michael Casey: Big industries have been shut down. There’s been paralyzed auto plants, and outages in commercial centers and shopping centers and so forth.
The government has forced 4,000 companies to curtail electricity use, and it’s applied gas restrictions to about 900 businesses. I’m Dan Grech for Marketplace.
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