The Negro river, a tributary of the Amazon river, is facing the worst dry season in decades in the Amazon rainforest.
| Photo Credit: AFP

As the Amazon drought rages on, public authorities in Brazil are scrambling to deliver food and water to thousands of isolated communities throughout a vast and roadless territory, where boats are the only means of transportation.

Across Amazonas state, which has a territory the size of three Californias, 59 out of its 62 municipalities are under state of emergency, impacting 633,000 people. In the capital Manaus, Negro River — a major tributary of the Amazon — has reached its lowest level since official measurements began 121 years ago.

One of the most impacted cities is Careiro da Varzea, near Manaus by the Amazon River. On Tuesday, the municipality distributed emergency kits using an improvised barge originally designed to transport cattle.

The Associated Press accompanied the delivery to two communities. It docked miles away from them, requiring residents, most of them small farmers and fishermen, to walk long distances through former riverbeds turned into endless sand banks and mud.

Each family received a basic food package and 20 liters of water, enough for just a few days but a heavy burden to carry under the scorching heat.

“I will have to carry the food package on my back for half an hour,” Moisés Batista de Souza, a small farmer from Sao Lazaro community, told the AP. He said the biggest problem is getting drinkable water. To reach the closest source demands a long walk from his house.

“Everybody in Careiro da Varzea has been affected by the drought,” said Jean Costa de Souza, chief of Civil Defense of Careiro da Varzea, a municipality of 19,600 people, most living in rural areas. “Unfortunately, people don’t have water. Some lost their crops, while others couldn’t transport their output.” Costa de Souza said the municipality will finish next week the first round of deliveries to all rural communities. Other two rounds are under planning, pending on receiving aid from state and federal governments.

Dry spells are part of the Amazon’s cyclical weather pattern, with lighter rainfall from May to October for most of the rainforest. The season is being further stretched this year by two climate phenomena: the warming of northern tropical Atlantic Ocean waters and El Niño — the warming of surface waters in the Equatorial Pacific region — which will peak between December and January.

Ancient human faces and other figures carved into stone have emerged from the Amazon River as a historic drought in the Brazilian region has brought water levels to record lows. The rock carvings depicting animals and other natural forms have been uncovered on the shores of the Rio Negro at an archaeological site called Ponto das Lajes, which means “Place of Slabs.” Researchers estimate that the markings are between 1,000 and 2,000 years old.

“The engravings are prehistoric, or precolonial. We cannot date them exactly, but based on evidence of human occupation of the area, we believe they are about 1,000 to 2,000 years old,” archaeologist Jaime de Santana Oliveira said in an interview on Monday.

“Some rock carvings had been sighted before, but now there is a greater variety that will help researchers establish their origins,” he added.

One area shows smooth grooves in the rock, thought to be where Indigenous inhabitants once sharpened their arrows and spears long before Europeans arrived.

Mr Oliveira said the carvings were first seen there in 2010, but this year’s drought has been more severe, with the Rio Negro dropping 15 metres (49.2 feet) since July, exposing vast expanses of rocks and sand where there had been no beaches.

“This time we found not just more carvings but the sculpture of a human face cut into the rock,” said Oliveira, who works for the National Historic and Artistic Heritage Institute (IPHAN), which oversees the preservation of historic sites.

(With inputs from Reuters)