Post date: Oct 15, 2010 8:10:43 PM
Lack of rains in the Amazon region parches rivers and prompt authorities to declare state of emergency in dozens of riverside villages.
MANAUS, BRAZIL REUTERS - A prolonged dry season in the Amazon has left key waterways too shallow and riverbanks completely parched, raising concerns the region might face its worst drought in years.
Some 25 riverside towns have declared state of emergency and roughly 40,000 people have been affected by the lack of rains that has hit the area in the past months.
A September drought has cut Peru's Amazon River to a level below the minimum set in 2005, when a devastating dry spell damaged vast swaths of the South American rainforest in the worst drought in decades.
Major producers who use the rivers to send down their exports are already implementing contingency plans as the dry weather lingers on and fears of some ships running aground are high.
Dozens of small boats were left stranded on scorched riverbanks and residents are struggling to buy supplies and sell their local goods.
Fisherman and farmer Manoel Verissimo Rodrigues, who lives in a small community on the outskirts of Manaus, said the drought has already devastated his crops.
"The drought is severe and it ruined the entire plantation we cultivate. Besides, the fish is very cheap. There is no point in fishing, arriving in Manaus and taking a box full of fish to make some 20 reais ($12 dollars)," he said.
Civil defense agents have airlifted 6 tons of food supplies and 200 tons of donations to the stricken villages, as the Solimoes River, one of the Amazon main tributaries, has also reached its lower level since 1982.
A Greenpeace team has flown over the region to oversee the damage range and volunteer Rafael Cruz said this year's drought was above the expected.
"There is already a climate change going on at some level. Greenpeace is tracking the impacts this can have on the Amazon, the impacts that the global warming -- some two degrees -- may bring to the Amazon, using as examples the years when those episodes are more severe. This year was out of the line," he said.
Scientists say the lack of rainfall, which is typical for this time of year, should continue for one more month until the start of the rainy season in end of November.
The severe dryness is related to what is shaping up to be an intense hurricane season in the Atlantic, as it sucks humidity away from the Amazon.
Civil defense agent, Colonel Roberto Rocha said the two climate events are connected.
"The hurricane season in the United States coincides with our outgoing tide, so when there is an increase in the number of stronger hurricanes in the North-American region, it affects our rainfall regime," he said.
The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season has been very active in the number of storms. An average season produces about 10 storms, of which six become hurricanes. This year has seen 15 named storms so far.
Many forecasters have said the number of hurricanes striking the U.S. rises during La Nina years, which is expected to last until spring 2011.
La Nina gives birth to colder-than-normal waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean and can disrupt weather patterns in the U.S. and as far away as India and Brazil.
At the time of the Amazon's 2005 drought, scientists said it stemmed in part from a hurricane season that broke numerous records and caused the catastrophic Katrina storm that devastated New Orleans.
Five years ago, sinking water levels shocked the world with pictures of rotting fish pilling up on dry riverbanks. Some billion tons of greenhouse gases were released then - more than the annual emissions of Europe and Japan.