LETICIA: Extreme drought affecting large parts of South America has dramatically reduced the flow of the Amazon River where Colombia borders Peru and Brazil, suffocating food supplies and threatening the health of residents. “The Amazon is drying up,” the mayor of the Colombian border town of Leticia, which lies on the smaller of the two branches of the river flowing through the Three Frontiers region, complained to AFP. The level of the Amazon, the world’s largest river by volume, dropped by 10 meters in Leticia between June and August, the Colombian Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies said. The receding waters have turned the river’s banks into steep walls of earth, preventing ships that supply Leticia’s 60,000 people with food, drinking water and fuel from docking in the city. The water level is so low that the municipality built wooden steps from the jetty down to the water. Mayor Leticia Elquin Uni said essential goods have become scarcer and more expensive as the city is stuck. “Even now they take two or three months (to arrive). This has complicated everything and threatens the quality of life and cost of living of our citizens,” he said. In July, the city hall of Leticia declared a “yellow alert” due to the falling water level. Local indigenous leader Crispin Angarita told AFP he had not seen the Amazon at such a depleted level for half a century and warned of a threat to people in need of urgent medical attention. In the absence of river transport, “it takes four hours to walk to the health center,” he said. Peruvian media reported that the drought had allowed the Amazon to cross from the Peruvian city of Santa Rosa de Yavari to Leticia, which is usually separated by 800 meters of water. Angarita said the drought is also threatening the livelihoods of communities along the rivers, who make their living mainly by growing maize, rice, cassava and other crops. In Brazil, the worst drought in seven decades is fueling the worst wildfire season in years, affecting not only the Amazon region but also the southwestern Pantanal wetlands. In Peru, President Dina Boluarte declared a state of emergency on Wednesday due to deadly fires burning in three departments, including Amazonas, also linked to severe drought. While September is usually the driest month in the Three Frontiers region, 2024 represents a new dangerous ground, said Santiago Duque of the Amazon Research Institute at the National University of Colombia. “We’ve had two years of extreme drought and this one is worse because there was less rainfall earlier in the year,” he said. Duque attributed much of the blame for the situation to rampant deforestation in the Amazon, which in turn reduces humidity and rainfall. “We are gradually destroying the Amazon,” he said. “We are increasingly aware that it will never be the same as in the past.”
