…en Perú - Travel Culture History News

As more and more of Peru’s glacial peaks find themselves without their snowy white caps, one more can now be added to that growing list.

End of Andean winter, April 2008

Life on the barren Peruvian coast and dry ocean-facing Andean slopes is predicted to become just that much drier in the coming years. As the world heats up and the tropical glaciers of Peru’s Andes mountains disappear, the narrow green fertile valleys that are fed by their melt waters will also disappear. The rivers that run down to the Pacific ocean provide fresh water to the vast majority of the Peruvian population, those in the cities and those in the fields alike.

The Nevado Chachani, a volcano found in Arequipa, this November finally ran out of snow according to local authorities. Engineer Zacarías Madariaga of the region’s Environmental Health Agency, explains that the final decline in the amount of ice at the volcano’s peak started in September, picked up pace by October and the ice was completely gone by November. And just like that, in such a short period of time, the peak was without snow for the first time in its history.

Water crisis

Arequipa is this year facing a water crisis, with two of its four reservoirs empty. The other two hold a combined 73 million cubic metres, while the White City uses one million per day.

Sebastián Zúñiga Medina, regional director of SENAMHI, Peru’s meteorological and hydrological authority, explains that the period encompassing the last few months of 2007 were the hottest and driest recorded. This led to more water evaporation - an incredible 7 litres per any square metre of exposed water [per time period was not given by the source].

He goes on to explain that the Chilina river, on which the city of Arequipa sits, is likely to be affected as Chachani fuels the Chili river that is the Chilina’s source.

Both Madariaga and Zúñiga blame global warming for the loss of ice and impending droughts, but also blame local authorities who ignored several years of warnings. City authorities did nothing to reduce air pollution and ignored recommendations to re-forest surrounding hills to increase the humidity of the air.

For those who have been to Arequipa, Chachani is located to the left of the famous El Misti, and was always covered in snow even why El Misti wasn’t.

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From the BBC: A state of emergency has been declared in the area around a volcano that has begun spitting ash and smoke after almost 40 years of inactivity.

The Ubinas volcano in southern Peru started erupting three weeks ago, killing livestock and polluting water.

The army has now been brought in to help evacuate nearby villages, although some residents are reluctant to leave. Peru’s Institute of Geophysics has warned that a dome of incandescent lava seems to be building up in the crater.

The volcano has been spewing out acid-laden ash and smoke over a radius of six kilometres (3.5 miles), causing eye and breathing problems for local people. A regional official said muffled explosions were coming from the volcano and pieces of red-hot lava were expanding inside the crater.

Teams of geologists and doctors have been sent to the area to monitor the volcano and the health risks.

“It’s dangerous…all the signs are that a dome of incandescent lava is building,” Leonidas Ocola of Peru’s Geophysics Institute told the French news agency AFP.

More than 200 people have already been forced from their homes, and several thousand more are at risk, officials said.

Around 40 families have been told to leave the town of Querapi, which lies just four km (2.5 miles) from the volcano.

“Some people do not want to leave because they do not want to abandon their homes, their farms and their animals,” the vice-president of the Moquegua region, Alberto Portugal, told AFP.

Some evacuees arrived on Friday and Saturday in Arequipa, the city closest to Querapi, a difficult six-hour bus ride, Reuters reported.

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