Worst drought on record lowers Amazon rivers to all-time lows | ABS-CBN News

The worst drought on record has lowered the water level of the rivers in the Amazon basin to historic lows, in some cases drying up riverbeds that were navigable waterways. The Solimoes, one of the main tributaries of the mighty Amazon River whose waters from the Peruvian Andes, has fallen to its lowest-ever level in Tabatinga, the Brazilian town on the border with Colombia. Downriver in Tefe, a branch of the Solimoes has dried up completely, as seen from a helicopter by Reuters reporters on Monday (September 17). The nearby Lake Tefe, where more than 200 freshwater dolphins died in last year's drought, has also dried up, depriving the endangered pink mammals of a favourite habitat. "We are going through a critical year, last year was already the hottest year in the last 125,000 years, this year several months have broken last year's records," said Greenpeace spokesperson Romulo Batista, pointing to the riverbed of the branch of the Solimoes turned to mounds of sand. The second consecutive year of critical drought has parched much of Brazil's vegetation and caused wildfires across the South American nations, cloaking cities in clouds of smoke. The Solimoes in Tabatinga was measured at 4.25 meters below the average for the first half of September. At Tefe, the river was 2.92 meters below the average level for the same two weeks last year, and is expected to drop further to its lowest ever. In Manaus, the Amazon's largest city, where the Solimoes joins the Rio Negro to form the Amazon River proper, the level of the Rio Negro is approaching its record low reached in October last year, when it dropped to the lowest level since measuring began in 1902. - Report from Reuters For more ABS-CBN News videos, click the link below: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgyY1WylJUmgUHWUpi2ioSp4xAP1SmAaf For more latest news and analysis from ABS-CBN News videos, click the link below: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgyY1WylJUmg4pcvfM9a96rbUcLD_0P_U For more News Digital News Raw Cuts, click the link below: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgyY1WylJUmi83yKJH8Dv0p_3D4cyZKzV Subscribe to the ABS-CBN News channel! - http://bit.ly/TheABSCBNNews Watch the full episodes of TV Patrol on iWantTFC: http://bit.ly/TVPatrol-iWantTFC Visit our website at http://news.abs-cbn.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abscbnNEWS Twitter: https://twitter.com/abscbnnews #Exclusive #LatestNews #ABSCBNNews