(Buenos Aires) The bodies of two Uruguayan tourists were discovered overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday in a hotel in San Carlos de Bariloche, partially destroyed by a landslide on Monday, bringing the toll to three dead and three injured, said authorities.
Posted at 3:41 p.m.
“At 3 a.m., rescuers found the bodies of two Uruguayan tourists who had been actively sought after the disaster” early Monday evening, the Rio Negro province prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
The landslide occurred when a large tree-lined embankment, overlooking the hotel complex, had collapsed, a consequence according to the authorities of exceptional rains in recent days in Bariloche, a popular mountain resort in southern Argentina 1,500 km from Buenos Aires. .
A Uruguayan tourist had been found dead, prisoner of his hotel room located on the passage of the vast landslide of mud, branches, stones. Three people, including his wife, were injured.
On Tuesday night, with precautions linked to the instability of the terrain, work aimed to remove “nearly 100 tonnes of mud which were inside a chamber. With buckets, in hand, for nine hours, to the place where the two “dead” people were, explained to the chain TN Patricia Díaz, undersecretary of civil protection of Bariloche.
The majority of tourists from the hotel, which has two main buildings and chalets, could be evacuated without damage, the landslide having mainly affected the back of the complex. But the perimeter was closed to prevent possible other landslides.