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The Antarctic ozone hole opened up over a city for the first time last month,
lurking over Punta Arenas in southern Chile on 9 and 10 September. The news came
hard on the heels of last month’s announcement that the ozone hole had reached
record proportions—just under 28 million square kilometres—on 3
September. Now its appearance over Punta Arenas is fuelling fears that the hole
will creep over more cities and stay for longer in future. Some researchers say
that filaments of low ozone could affect Argentina or even the southern tip of
Africa, Australia and New Zealand for weeks at a time.