Lago de Puraquequara is usually a large lake roughly in the middle of the Amazon. Some are on houseboats out on the lake, others in cabins along the riverbank. Fishing is important, both for food and money. Now the lake is almost empty of water. Only a small strip in the middle breaks up the cracked, dried out clay base. Raimundo da Silva do Carmo has dug a well in the dried up lake. Photo: Reuters Had to dig for water 67-year-old Raimundo da Silva do Carmo is one of those who live by Lago de Puraquequara. Usually he is a fisherman, but now he has no lake to fish in. In order to get hold of water, he has had to dig a well in the dried-up bottom of the lake, writes Reuters. Fish that have died because the rivers have dried up in the Manacapuru, a tributary of the Amazon above Manaus. Photo: AP Recurring over large areas The scenes at Lago de Puraquequara can be relived over large areas in the Amazon. At the big city of Manaus, the water level in the Amazon is six meters lower than normal. Lakes and tributaries of the great Amazon River have dried up. In the rainforest, the next thing is no roads. People travel by riverboats, or by seaplane if they can afford it. Now the riverboats are stuck on the sandbanks and the seaplanes have no water to land in. Enormous sandbanks have appeared in the Rio Solimoes, which is the common name for the part of the Amazon that lies west of Manaus. Photo: Reuters Can’t get food and water in – We have a very worrying situation. The record drought has already caused problems for river transport, which threatens food and water supplies. That’s what Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Sllva told Reuters at the end of September. Since then, the situation has worsened. What little water there is is often too dirty to drink. Large amounts of dead fish have made it dangerous to drink. Driest in 40 years Eight states in Brazil have recorded the lowest amount of rainfall from July to September in 40 years. This is reported by CEMADEN, Brazil’s center for crisis warning. This has led to the drought affecting most large rivers in the Amazon rainforest, AP writes. The river systems in the Amazon contain around 20 percent of the world’s fresh water. A week ago, 42 out of 62 municipalities in Amazonas had declared a state of emergency. Around 250,000 people are directly affected by the drought and the number is expected to rise sharply. Fourth drought in a short time – The kind of drought we are seeing now is something that used to happen every 20-30 years. year. Now it is the fourth in the last 15 years. That’s what Anders Krogh says, who is a senior adviser at the environmental organization Regnskogfondet. – Since 1970, the dry season in the southern and western Amazon has become a month longer, says Anders Krogh. Photo: Regnskogfondet He says that there have been droughts in the Amazon in the past, but that they have been caused by external phenomena such as El Niño. – What the research is now clear about is that this is largely caused internally, i.e. because certain places in the Amazon have been so heavily deforested. Since 1970, the dry season in the southern and western Amazon has become one month longer. It has become one degree warmer and the humidity over the Amazon has been reduced by 15-40 per cent over the past 20 years, says Krogh. Dead Amazon dolphins Among those affected by the drought are the Amazon dolphins. It is the world’s largest species of river dolphin and lives over large parts of the river network. It is already threatened by the construction of dams, oil extraction and mining. This has led to it being classified as threatened by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), writes Regnskogfondet’s magazine Regnskog.no. High temperatures and little water in lakes and rivers have now led to mass deaths among the dolphins. In Lake Tefe in the west of the Amazon, the temperature in the water increased from 32 to 3i8 degrees in two days, AP writes. This led to the death of 120 dolphins out of the 1,400 that live in the area last week. Scientists look at an Amazon dolphin that has died from heat and drought at Lake Tefe, in the west of the Amazon. Photo: Reuters Signs of collapse – This is another sign that the Amazon is about to collapse, says Anders Krogh about the current drought. He points out that the Amazon is not only important in itself, but is also very important for the rain in large parts of South America. – This applies to some of the world’s largest agricultural areas that give birth to huge populations. That rain supply is about to collapse, he says. The authorities in Brazil say that only after the new year is there any hope that the drought will end. That is the short perspective, but Krogh does not see a little rain next year as any solution. – I am extremely worried. The more you go into the research on this, the more serious you see that the situation is, says Anders Krogh.
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Extreme drought ravages the Amazon – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
