Brazil’s Amazon basin forest and the Pantanal area, both home to a rich variety of flora and fauna, are experiencing a severe drought, officials have said.
After record floods last year due to a historic rise in water levels in the Amazon River, several communities in western parts of Amazonas state are now isolated due to a drought. Officials are already calling it the worst drought since 1973.
The Jurua River in the Amazon is now practically dry, hampering navigation on its waters.
“The Jurua’s water levels have fallen dramatically. Here, in Itamarati, we are only 60 centimeters (1.97 feet) from the worst drought in 2005,” the city’s mayor, Joao Campelo, told O Globo.
Campelo said local watermelon, manioc (cassava root) and fruit plantations had been particularly hard hit.
Other cities and towns like Envira, which also usually depends on the waters for trade and commerce, have declared states of emergency. The regional government is due to send food and water to the more than 80,000 people estimated to have been affected by the disaster.
These communities can now only be accessed by foot through paths in the forest.
In Pantanal, a vast swampy region in central-western Brazil, waters have dropped dramatically in the Chacore Bay, the third largest in the country.
