On the morning of the Monday 17th of January 2022,

Montevideo Montevideo () is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

, the capital of

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

, and its neighbouring

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

, department of Canelones, went through a period of heavy rain that developed into a

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

that submerged a number of neighbourhoods of the city underwater. The previous weekend, the country had experienced the highest heatwave in its recorded history. The rainfall that ensued that Monday was measured to add up to between 50 and 100 millilitres of rain, the bulk of it being in the period between 5:00 AM and 7:00 AM. The neighbouring department of Canelones also received similar amounts. 17,000 houses suffered power outages in the capital, and more than 11,000 in the neighbouring departments. Massive amounts of rain were also recorded elsewhere in the country, both towards the west and east of the capital, as well as up north. City authorities labelled the flood as "unprecedented" in its history. The mayor of one of the municipalities called the situation "critical", and added that "especially for poorer neighbourhoods it has hit really hard". Around 200 calls were made to the local firefighting departments, 138 of which were for evacuation assistance purposes. Videos of cars and garbage units floating on the city's streets were also widely shared in social media and on different platforms and websites.

Political reactions

The flood also brought political in-fighting between various sectors of the political spectrum in the country, which were already tense because of different social issues, including reforms concerning the country's education and

social security Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...

. While the country's executive branch is under the rule of one party, its capital is currently run by an

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative assistant, Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an admini ...

led by its opposition, leading to an environment of heavy politicization of events occurring therein.

References

Natural disasters in Uruguay

2022 in Uruguay January 2022 events in South America 21st century in Montevideo 2022 disasters in Uruguay {{flood-stub