Record flooding caused by torrential rains has killed dozens of people in Argentina.  With 52 people, more downpours are expected to fall through at least Thursday.

46 people were killed in La Plata, a city of 750,000 people just to the southeast of the capital Buenos Aires, where another 6 people died.

Local television reports showed fully inundated neighborhoods, people wading through water, and the aftermath of cars and debris tossed all over the place (amazing video). Many shop owners said they had lost all their produce beneath three feet of water.  A security official this is La Plata’s worst ever flooding.

The disaster set off political bickering in the already acrimonious relationship between the administration of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Buenos Aires’ conservative Mayor Mauricio Macri who is being accused of knowing the storm was coming but failing to prepare.  Macri counters that the Fernández government is preventing the city from taking out World Bank loans to pay for infrastructure projects.  

Macri also says these floods are the "new normal", caused by global climate change, so Argentina had better do something to deal with them.