Conchacuta, Dec. 2 (BNA): From her home in the blazing sun in Peru’s southern Andes, Vilma Huamani can see small Lake Conchacuta, the centerpiece of her community’s life. It was a source of trout, frolic for children eager to swim, camels like flamingos soaring over the mountains, and waters for thirsty sheep.
At present, all Huamani sees in the lake 4,100 meters (13,120 feet) above sea level is a plain of cracked and broken soil surrounded by yellow grass, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
“I’m completely dried out,” she said.
The rainy season in this part of South America was supposed to start in September, but the region has been experiencing its own dry spell for nearly half a century, affecting more than 3,000 communities in the central and southern Andes of Peru.
A light rain last week – only the second in eight months – prompted residents to set out containers outdoors to catch some water. The droplets raised dust as they hit the ground, and by the next morning the scant moisture had been evaporated by the sun.
Dead sheep and lambs, so weak that they can hardly stand, can be found among the sparse yellow grass. Planting of potatoes, the only crop growing in Huamani village, has been delayed, leading many to expect food shortages in the coming months as people are already feeding themselves from their reserves of dried potatoes.
“Every day, I ask – I hope – that it will rain… When there is rain the grass grows, the potatoes (grow),” said Huamani, 38, who moved with her four children from the Peruvian capital, Lima, to Conchacuta. In 2020 trying to escape the coronavirus pandemic.
The absence of rain occurs in part of the Andes as a result of the La Niña phenomenon, which is present in 2022 for the third year in a row, according to the United Nations Meteorological Agency. Drought also hit parts of Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina.
Yuri Escajadillo, a climatologist at Peru’s National Meteorological and Hydrological Service, said the indicator used to measure droughts considers the region to be “extremely dry.”
“It’s a record value,” Escajadillo said.
In Conchacuta, there is no drinking water, sanitation, or telephone service. People drink water they get from a nearby spring, though it also sometimes dries up.
Residents say their appeals to the local authorities for help have gone unanswered for more than two months.
So, young farmer Grisaldo Challanca used his mobile phone to record videos and make a drought report. He posted it on a Facebook page after he climbed to about 4,500 meters above sea level to get an internet connection.
The long-awaited response from regional authorities arrived last week with the delivery of packages of oat fodder for the surviving sheep, cattle, alpacas and llamas.
“All animals are bones,” said John Franklin Chalanka, a 12-year-old shepherd whose family lost 50 sheep.
The Andes Mountains are one of the world’s most sensitive regions to climatic migrations due to droughts, tropical storms, hurricanes, heavy rains and floods, according to the latest report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Global warming has caused Andean glaciers to lose from 30% to more than 50% of their area since the 1980s. The report says that retreating glaciers, increased temperatures and precipitation variability, along with changes in land use, have affected ecosystems, water resources and livelihoods through landslides and flood disasters, adding that summer precipitation appears to be decreasing in the southern Andes.
Small farmers in different parts of the Andes mountains of Peru and Bolivia pray for rain. Prayers are held on the shores of Lake Titicaca, which both countries share, and on mountains that indigenous communities regard as gods.
At the only evangelical church in Conchacuta, Rossi Chalanca said the drought was a punishment for “man’s sins” and a clear sign that the end of the world would soon come.
But for climatologists, the lake would have dried up because it is less than a meter (3 feet) deep, relies exclusively on rainwater and is under strong solar radiation.
These factors make an “ideal cocktail” for drying up small lakes in the high Andes regions, said Wilson Suarez, a professor of mountain hydrology and glaciology at La Molina National Agricultural University in Peru.
“This should alert them that times are changing,” Suarez said of the region’s residents, who have long relied on the lakes to irrigate their livestock. “Drought is not easy to deal with…the climate is changing.”
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