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‘We beg God for water’: Chilean lake turns to desert, sounding climate change alarm
‘We beg God for water’: Chilean lake turns to desert, sounding climate change alarm
The Wider Image: ‘We beg God for water’: Chilean lake turns to desert, sounding climate change alarmAlexander Villegas and Rodrigo Gutierrez
By Alexander Villegas and Rodrigo Gutierrez
PENUELAS, Chile (Reuters) – The Penuelas reservoir in central Chile was until twenty years ago the main source of water for the city of Valparaiso, holding enough water for 38,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. Water for only two pools now remains.
A huge expanse of dried and cracked earth that was once the lake bed is littered with fish skeletons and desperate animals searching for water.
Amid an historic 13-year drought, rainfall levels have slumped in this South American nation that hugs the continent’s Pacific coast. Higher air temperatures have meant snow in the Andes, once a key store of meltwater for spring and summer, is not compacting, melts faster, or turns straight to vapor.
The drought has hit mine output in the world’s largest copper producer, stoked tensions over water use for lithium and farming, and led capital Santiago to make unprecedented plans for potential water rationing.
“We have to beg God to send us water,” said Amanda Carrasco, a 54-year-old who lives near the Penuelas reservoir and recalls line fishing in the waters for local pejerrey fish. “I’ve never seen it like this. There’s been less water before, but not like now.”
The reservoir needs rainfall – once reliable in winter but now at historic lows, said Jose Luis Murillo, general manager of ESVAL, the company that supplies Valparaiso with water.
“Basically what we have is just a puddle,” he said, adding that the city now relied on rivers. “This is especially significant if you think that several decades ago the Penuelas reservoir was the only source of water for all greater Valparaiso.”
Behind the issue, academic studies have found, is a global shift in climate patterns sharpening natural weather cycles.
Normally, low-pressure storms from the Pacific unload precipitation over Chile in winter, recharging aquifers and packing the Andes mountains with snow………Story continues
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