On the evening of April 2, unprecedented rains lashed the city of Buenos Aires, provoking floods in several of its neighborhoods. On the following day, stronger rains fell on Ciudad de La Plata and adjacent cities, with more than 300 Mm falling in certain places in just a few hours.
As a consequence, part of the city of Buenos Aires and a great part of La Plata, capital of the Buenos Aires Province, located 60 km south of the city of Buenos Aires, were left totally under water, which in places exceeded a height of 2 meters. Houses, cars, stores, streets and highways were left under water, causing more than 50 casualties and thousands of evacuees. Electricity, land and mobile telephone services suffered interruptions for several hours, or days in certain locations.
A campaign was organized immediately to collect donations throughout the country destined to zones under the emergency, and that is where the work of the radio amateurs proved valuable.
In communication with radio clubs and amateur radio operators in the disaster zone, and with personnel from the province police authority, SERA, the Emergency Service Radio Amateurs of Argentina, handled communications to and from that zone, providing information about the best routes and access so that trucks with clothing, water and supplies for evacuees and victims could reach the centers where the help was being centralized. This operation was carried out mainly on April 5, 6 and 7. Authorities from the CNC, the National Communications Commission, were present at the zone to get a closer look at the activities of the radio amateurs.
Radioclub La Plata, LU8DZE, activated 3 repeaters in VHF and UHF, besides an Echolink node, for local communications. The radio clubs of Necochea, LU9EV, and Neuquén, LU1YY, coordinated the actions of the control station that was taking care of the requirements in the 40-meter band.
The repeaters of Radio Club La Plata are still active, and operators are on alert in case of future needs.
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