Fire Haze Shrouds Argentine Capital
A woman crosses a street in Buenos Aires, where smoke from rural fires blamed on farmers disrupted air and port traffic and caused accidents.
(By Natacha Pisarenko -- Associated Press)
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Friday, April 18, 2008
BUENOS AIRES, April 17 -- The Argentine capital has been veiled in a malodorous fog this week, as smoke spreads from massive grass fires centered in a neighboring rural province.
Poor visibility grounded flights at the city's domestic airport, temporarily shut down its main seaport and closed two major roadways Thursday morning. The smoke was also blamed for two multi-vehicle crashes that killed eight people in the past week on a local highway.
The 270-square-mile blaze is centered near the delta of the Parana River, which separates the provinces of Entre Rios and Buenos Aires. Government officials said Thursday they believe it was deliberately set by farmers trying to clear land for new fields.
"In this case, agricultural producers have demonstrated great disregard for the community, showing an irrationality and irresponsibility that is truly alarming," Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo said in a televised news conference.
The Argentine government is engaged in a bitter dispute with the country's farmers over a recent hike in export taxes on agricultural products, including soybeans. The dispute led to production strikes that caused shortages of some products here, but the farmers and the government recently called a temporary truce to try to solve the problems.
Ulises Forte, the vice president of the Argentine Agrarian Federation, accused the government of using the fires against the farmers for political purposes, according to the state news service.
