Amazonia, hit by the worst drought on record

The Amazon is suffering from drought at a time when Europe is being wracked by floods. The worst drought ever recorded in Brazil has reduced the water level of rivers in the Amazon basin to historic lows, in some cases drying up the beds of rivers that were until recently navigable, reports Reuters. The Solimoes, one of the main tributaries of the mighty Amazon River, whose waters originate in the Peruvian Andes, has dropped to its lowest level ever recorded in Tabatinga, a Brazilian city located near the Colombian border. Downstream, the Tefe, an arm of the Solimoes River, has completely dried up, as Reuters reporters who flew over the river on Sunday found. Nearby Lake Tefe, where more than 200 freshwater dolphins died during last year's drought, has also dried up, depriving these endangered pink mammals of one of their favorite habitats. "We are going through a critical year," said Romulo Batista, a spokesman for the Greenpeace organization, pointing to where the bed of that branch of the Solimoes River has turned into piles of sand. "This year, several months have surpassed last year's records," he added. The second year in a row of severe drought has dried up much of Brazil's vegetation and caused wildfires in South American countries, blanketing cities with clouds of smoke. "Climate change is no longer something to worry about in the future, 10 or 20 years from now. It is already here and it is here with much greater force than we expected," added Romulo Batista. The level of the Solimoes River was measured in Tabatinga at 4.25 meters below the multi-year average for the first half of September. As for the Tefe, this river was 2.92 meters below the average level for the same two weeks last year, and experts expect the water to drop further in the coming period and reach the lowest level in its history . In Manaus, the largest city in Amazonia, where the Solimoes joins the Rio Negro to form the Amazon River proper, the level of the Rio Negro is approaching its all-time record low, reached last October.