EL PAÍS offers the América Futura section open for its daily and global informative contribution on sustainable development. If you want to support our journalism, subscribe here.
Lidia Castellino was only 15 years old when the water surrounded her house. He remembers how he was advancing very slowly in the face of the impotence of his family, who resisted as long as they could, until December 1977. Then, they gave up due to the historic flood of Mar Chiquita, which submerged 60% of the Cordoba town of Miramar, in Argentina, the only town on the banks of this salty lagoon that everyone calls the sea.
“It was impossible to continue there,” recalls Castellino, who is 60 years old today. “We always had the illusion of returning. Until the water completely covered the house and we didn’t come back again, ”he recounts.
Mar Chiquita is an endorheic basin with no outlet to the sea that receives water from three rivers and only runs off by evaporation. The lagoon, also known as Mar de Ansenuza, rises and falls following the rhythm of climate change. Today it is at one of its lowest points due to the lack of rain and the diversion of water from the Dulce River, its main tributary, for irrigation.
It has a surprising surface: the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires enters its basin ten times (25 times when it is at maximum level). It is the largest salty lagoon in South America and the fifth largest in the world, with an enormous concentration of salt—82 grams per liter, three times more than the ocean—and other minerals that give the water and mud therapeutic properties similar to those of the Dead Sea.
These characteristics gave rise to Miramar at the end of the 19th century when European immigrants settled in the lagoon basin during a period of drought.
a historical downpipe
The downspout began in 2017. Today it is six meters below its maximum level, which explains the reappearance of the sunken town 45 years ago. Biologist Enrique Bucher, emeritus professor at the National University of Cordobaresearcher of National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet) and director of the team that prepares the Ansenuza National Park management plan, explains that this phenomenon occurs due to two factors: the marked fall in rainfall throughout the region, associated with recent climate changes, and the increasingly intense extraction of water for irrigation in the upper basin of the Dulce River, to the north of the lagoon, an element that, he says, “is not very clear in the local conscience.”
“Mar Chiquita is seriously threatened regardless of climate change due to this extremely important extraction for irrigation, which is increasing,” he says. Right now, he explains, there is a Chinese company developing irrigation channels for several tens of thousands of hectares. “There are two key factors that affect the level. One perceived by society and the other, not ”, he insists.
Matías Michelutti, member of the High Andean Flamingo Conservation Group (GCFA) and tour guide, explains that today the lagoon is around 300,000 hectares, about 50 kilometers by 90 kilometers. Its size with all the flow is 100 kilometers by 90 from east to west, about 600,000 hectares. “In 2003 it reached one million hectares,” points out Michelutti.
The lagoon is protected by the brand new Ansenuza National Park. There are 661,416 hectares that, together with the Bañados del Río Dulce, make up a huge wetland essential for the conservation of biodiversity.
It houses 66% of all migratory and shorebirds registered in Argentina; It is the habitat of 350 species and the paradise of the southern flamingos. The last census carried out in 2022 by the GCFA, showed the presence of 350,000 specimens in the lagoon and surroundings. Since 2007, the population has not stopped growing. “It is the site with the highest concentration of flamingos in America”, explains Michelutti.
The Flood
The family of Juan Bergia, 74, lost their home and a business in the floods. “The lagoon ate us more than 100 meters from Camping Los Sanavirones. We did everything to stop it and one day I told my brother: ‘Enough, we can’t fight him anymore’”, he says.
Bergia tours the old town where 90% of the tourist infrastructure that was swallowed by the water was located and says that he does not hold a grudge against him, to the point that he hopes that his ashes will go to the “sea” when he dies. The lagoon took 37 blocks with its 102 hotels and inns, 198 houses, 65 businesses, the thermal complex, the casino and the amphitheater with 480 seats and 120 tables, but no life.
“What is the feeling of seeing this? Nothing, I learned not to complain about things. We are going through very good and very bad economic situations. Life has been partly generous with me and partly not ”, she assures. And although he says that he had opportunities to go to work in southern Argentina and even in Rome, he says that he chose to stay in the town. He is one of the 1,600 inhabitants who did not leave. But most left. The flood caused an exodus of 70% of its inhabitants that existed before the flood. “We were left without tourism for 30 years,” explains Daniel Fontana, 61, now the owner of the Hotel Miramar. The man was dedicated to the fur trade until the last flood of 2003 destroyed his factory.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Miramar was also a mecca for coypu or false otter skins that were exported to Russia. Egidio León, owner of one of the two remaining farms, recalls that there were 200 furriers and five tanneries.
The illusion of returning
Mirta Bianciotti finished building her house on the top floor of her business in December 1977, but in March it had 70 centimeters of water. “We would go out through the roofs and my brother-in-law would look for the boys to go to school in a canoe,” she says.
Like most, Mirta thought that the water would go down soon. “We said: ‘She’s not going to get here,’ but she got there and went two or three more blocks. It’s terrible, you feel pain here like when something happens to your mom, ”she says, pointing to her chest. “We have lived through very hard times.” She also stayed in the village and has no regrets. In the 1990s, she began building tourist accommodation with the revival of Miramar in mind.
Daniel Fontana sadly remembers the old people who were left with nothing. “Many left this world with great sorrows,” he laments. Although he believes that the gap that he “always gives and always takes away”, he takes more than he leaves. “When the lagoon grew and the concentration of salt diluted, the pejerrey returned,” he graphed.
Lidia Castellino believes that the “sea” marks the beat of life. “I have seen my father cry and I remember his sadness when we lost everything, but he instilled hope in us. What were we going to say to the lagoon? So, now we would have to be angry with her because she is retiring, ”she opines.
the implosion
The submerged city was demolished on September 15, 1992 for security reasons and also with the intention of tearing down that sad past. Now, with the drought, that Miramar that disappeared for decades is reduced to mountains of rubble.
The Army was in charge of imploding all the infrastructure under water. The Virgen del Valle church was also demolished and the priest at the time was in charge of activating the detonator.
The historian Mariana Zapata considers that the demolition was painful but necessary for the revival of the town. “It was getting up and seeing each other’s life story under the water, a skeleton emerging from the lagoon,” she says. But with each detonation, it was inevitable for the neighbors to wonder who would have been left homeless.
Mirta Bianchiotti saw when her house exploded. “Your heart squeezes, you don’t know what to do. Although I was satisfied with the detonations because those sunken houses gave a very sad appearance, they blocked our view of the sea and the sunsets, which are impressive, ”she says.
Juan Bergia believes that the demolition was a chapter that was closed. “There was nothing to do,” he remarks.
Gerardo Cuello, 56, was 11 during the flood of 1977. “Walking around gives nostalgia, it refreshes things that had been forgotten,” he says. The last time he visited the ruins he went looking for his childhood bocce ball court. He found no traces. “Everything is memory,” he says.
When Lidia Castellino observes her old house on Calle Alberdi in pieces, a certain melancholy surrounds her. When she emerged she went to see her. She tells that she discovered the color of her room and her house seemed smaller than she remembered. “Now that the water has receded, it is to relive that with nostalgia and memories,” she says.
The demolition somehow meant the starting point for the rebirth. But in 2003 it was flooded again, with a greater volume of water but less damage. A hundred homes were lost and the maximum level of the lagoon was set to order the construction and avoid new disasters.
On that occasion, the water also covered the basements of the monumental Grand Hotel Vienna (today a museum), which remained as a witness of other times. The museum guide Patricia Zapata explains that it was built by a German-Austrian family between 1940 and 1945 and that it would have served as a refuge for Nazi leaders after World War II.
Today Miramar has returned to being a tourist city with 219 hotels and accommodation of different categories and 1,800 places in campsites. It receives more than 10,000 visitors in the summer.
#Argentine #town #emerged #years #water #due #drought