Living under an invisible threat

Puerto Williams faces a deadly threat from above

By James Reynolds in Puerto Williams

Every year at around this time, an ozone hole opens up over the Antarctic - but this year it has opened up to record levels.

For a few days it has also spread to the southern tip of South America. This area includes the small town of Puerto Williams - the southernmost settlement in the Americas.

At first sight, the town seems unaffected by the ozone alert in southern Chile.

A small sign stuck outside the post office warning people to stay indoors at midday and use suncream is the only obvious evidence of anything wrong.

For the moment, most of the 2,000 residents of the town are carrying on with life as normal.

Few precautions

Very few people have taken any great precaution against the sun, and not a single shop in Puerto Williams stocks sun cream.

Radiation warnings are becoming common

The town's fishermen are among those who seem determined to continue with little - if any - regard for the effects of the ozone hole.

For most, concern is focused on the size of the next catch, not the amount of time it may take to get sunburned.

"I'm not quite sure what damage the ozone hole has created here," says fisherman Eladio Enrique Leger, "But it doesn't really bother me - I haven't felt any damage yet."

Raising awareness

But in some areas, life has been affected. At the town's school, ecologist Ricardo Rozzi has been brought in to give special classes about the ozone hole.

Ricardo Rozzi is trying to raise awareness among the young

He encourages his pupils to read the latest environmental alert issued by the authorities. The most recent alert warns that unprotected skin can burn in the mid-day sun in just five minutes.

Because of this, Mr Rozzi's plans to take his class outside to the new botanical park in Puerto Williams have had to be postponed.

The governor of Puerto Williams, Eduardo Barros, is trying to raise awareness of the problems of life under the ozone hole.

He wants to buy sunglasses for the town's kindergarten children as protection against the sun, and plans to have a batch of sun cream shipped in to the town.

Long term fears

Beyond this, the governor is looking to the possibility of long-term damage to the health of people in Puerto Williams as a result of the ozone hole - such as a possible rise in skin cancer rates.

"In the future, if scientists can prove that the ozone hole has damaged the health of people here, we'll begin legal action against those companies responsible for the chemicals which have depleted the ozone layer," he says.

"We'll be like those people in America who've taken on the tobacco companies."

For the moment, doctors working in Puerto Williams say they have not detected a rise in skin cancer among the town's residents.

But they say this does not mean that the people of Puerto Williams are out of danger, and warn that it could be several decades before the potentially harmful effects of life under the ozone hole become apparent.

The ozone hole reached its deepest this year