The Iguazu Falls, on the border between Brazil and Argentina, recorded a flow of 24.2 million liters per second this week, unheard of since 2014, according to natural park managers.
The Urbia company, which manages this park and monitors the water flow with the Brazilian public body Chico Mendes, has also indicated that the footbridges which allow you to closely admire the “Devil’s Throat”, a spectacular waterfall located in on the Argentinian side, remained closed to the public on Tuesday.
The image is impressive: on Monday, the access walkways were completely engulfed by the raging brown waters. But the rest of the Natural Park remains open to the public.
The flow recorded at the start of the week is 16 times higher than normal, due to the heavy rains that have fallen in recent weeks in the region.
This record in almost a decade has only been broken twice in the last forty years, in 1983 (35 million liters per second) and in 2014 (46.3 million).
The flow, however, began to decrease on Tuesday, to 18.1 million liters per second, and “the trend is downward for the coming days,” assured Urbia.
Despite the closure of the footbridges on the Argentinian side, the National Park is expected to receive nearly 25,000 tourists this weekend, with Thursday being a public holiday in Brazil.
The Iguazu Falls, considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world by the New7Wonders foundation, welcome around 1.5 million visitors per year.