An improvised truck with two water tanks has been used to quench the thirst of at least 7,000 people living in neighborhoods affected by severe drought in the municipality of Envira, in Amazonas, 1,200 kilometers from the capital, Manaus.
The dry season in the Amazon began at the end of last month and will last until the beginning of November. So far, the state has declared a state of emergency in 20 municipalities.
According to the Civil Defense of Envira, one of the four wells that supply the city has dried up, causing rationing. The truck has been distributing up to 30 thousand liters of water in three affected neighborhoods, from Monday to Friday. The water tanks, however, only have a capacity of 10 thousand liters. Therefore, three trips per day are necessary in each neighborhood.
“We started distributing water on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but due to demand, we are now distributing it every weekday. Based on our schedule, we believe that another neighborhood should be added to the list,” said the department’s secretary, Ismael Dutra.
Food and medicine
Another concern is food. More than half of the city’s commercial sector is supplied by the city of Feijó (AC), with goods being transported via the Envira River. “Today, it is measuring 1.15 meters at the mouth of the Jurupari and the vessels are no longer able to reach it,” said the manager.
In 2023, the peak of the drought in the region occurred in September. This year, the most critical scenario is already seen now, when not only is there a lack of water in the urban region of the municipality, but also food and medicine in the rural perimeter.
“We have been asking for at least two months for riverside residents to move to the municipal headquarters during the drought, because it is very difficult to reach these locations. Some communities are already isolated. The most critical situation is food, because they cannot fish, they lose their crops due to lack of water and they cannot go to the headquarters to buy food,” says the secretary.
According to him, in addition to the 7,000 people affected in the urban area, there are another 3,000 people affected by the drought in rural areas, including traditional populations. The total (10,000) is already more than half of the municipality’s population (17,000), according to the 2022 Census by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
One of the isolated communities is Aldeia Macapá, on the Acuraua River, which is home to 500 people from the Kulina people.
“We can’t help all the communities and we need help from the government. Before, you would have to travel four hours to get to Macapá. Today, the same distance can be covered in three days in a small canoe that can only hold two people.”
Historical fact
Last year’s drought affected more than 600,000 people in the state of Amazonas alone, where all 62 municipalities declared a state of emergency. Since the end of last year, however, institutions that monitor the Amazon Basin have been warning of the risk of a drought as severe as the one in 2023 repeating itself this year.
At the beginning of the month, the Management and Operational Center of the Amazon Protection System (Censipam) estimated that river levels could reach or exceed the historic minimum in 14 stations in the region, affecting the basins of the Madeira, Mearin, Negro, Solimões, Tapajós and Tocantins/Araguai Rivers.
“We will most likely have a very significant period of drought, similar to what happened in 2023, when the worst drought in the region’s history occurred, considering that quota values are currently lower than the levels recorded last year,” said Censipam analyst Flavio Altieri.
“I’m 33 years old and I’ve never seen this happen. My mother, who is 64, says the same thing. Seeing our rivers so dry is something that really affects us. It’s a humanitarian crisis similar to what the country saw in Rio Grande do Sul. We are the last municipality in Amazonas, very far from the capital and we are not used to seeing these phenomena,” said Dutra.
state
The Amazonas government has already established a Drought Response Committee and declared a state of emergency in 20 municipalities, all located along the Solimões, Juruá and Purus rivers. Another decree placed 22 municipalities and the metropolitan region of Manaus in a “state of environmental emergency.”
“We anticipated this. Last year, we brought this learning: for example, basic food baskets, water and filters, all of this already has a bidding process”, informed Governor Wilson Lima (União Brasil).
The information is from the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.
Source: CNN Brasil
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