Months after floods, Brazil’s Amazon faces a severe drought

TEFE (AP):

Just months after enduring floods that destroyed crops and submerged entire communities, thousands of families in the Brazilian Amazon are now dealing with severe drought that at least in some areas, is the worst in decades. The low level of the Amazon River, at the centre of the largest drainage system in the world, has put dozens of municipalities under alert.

The fast-decreasing river water level is due to lower-than-expected rainfall during August and September, according to Luna Gripp, a geosciences researcher who monitors the western Amazon’s river levels for the Brazilian Geological Survey.

As most of Amazonas state is not connected by roads, the main concern is the shortage of food, fuel, and other goods normally transported through waterways. In Tefe, a city of 60,000 people by the Amazon river, large ships have not been able to arrive at the downtown port.

In the Sao Estevao community, the fishermen have postponed fishing pirarucu, the Amazon’s largest fish, because the boat to transport their catch to the city cannot dock. The legal fishing season runs until the end of November. If the water level doesn’t rise soon, the seven-family community will lose a significant source of income, fisherman Pedro Canizio da Silva told The Associated Press in an audio message.

About six months ago, the community suffered losses due to a heavier-than-expected flood season.