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hatrack

(59,439 posts)
Sat Feb 18, 2017, 06:59 PM Feb 2017

Worst Drought On Record Pounds Brazil's Already-Arid Northeast

Last edited Sat Feb 18, 2017, 08:11 PM - Edit history (1)

The shrunken carcasses of cows lie in scorched fields outside the city of Campina Grande in northeast Brazil, and hungry goats search for food on the cracked-earth floor of the Boqueirao reservoir that serves the desperate town.

After five years of drought, farmer Edivaldo Brito says he cannot remember when the Boqueirão reservoir was last full. But he has never seen it this empty. "We've lost everything: bananas, beans, potatoes," Brito said. "We have to walk 3 kilometers just to wash clothes."

Brazil's arid northeast is weathering its worst drought on record and Campina Grande, which has 400,000 residents that depend on the reservoir, is running out of water. After two years of rationing, residents complain that water from the reservoir is dirty, smelly and undrinkable. Those who can afford to do so buy bottled water to cook, wash their teeth with, and even to give their pets.

The reservoir is down to 4 percent of capacity and rainfall is expected to be sparse this year. "If it does not fill up, the city's water system will collapse by mid-year," says Janiro Costa Rêgo, an expert on water resources and hydraulics professor at Campina Grande's federal university. "It would be a holocaust. You would have to evacuate the city."

EDIT

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-drought-idUSKBN15W1HP

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Worst Drought On Record Pounds Brazil's Already-Arid Northeast (Original Post) hatrack Feb 2017 OP
Important foreign news, considering it impacts 55 million+ people. tenorly Feb 2017 #1
Check your link hatrack pscot Feb 2017 #2
Thanks Pscot - got it! hatrack Feb 2017 #4
Two years ago it was southern Brazil OnlinePoker Feb 2017 #3

tenorly

(2,037 posts)
1. Important foreign news, considering it impacts 55 million+ people.
Sat Feb 18, 2017, 07:04 PM
Feb 2017

Please post a copy of this on the Latin America forum, hatrack. Thanks for finding it!

OnlinePoker

(5,702 posts)
3. Two years ago it was southern Brazil
Sat Feb 18, 2017, 07:48 PM
Feb 2017

The main reservoir serving Sao Paulo was down to 9% full. Now it's over 91%. If you use Google Timelapse on the Campina Grande region and sit it about 20km for the distance marker, you can see how the brown everything has gotten in the last 4 years. It hasn't stopped people cutting down the forest further inland which is where much of the rain came from in the first place. They've destroyed the rain forest's natural system for spreading precipitation through the whole region.

https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/

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