By Andres SchipaniBBC News, Khapi For the Incas, and most of the Andean civilisations, snow-capped mountains were divinities to be honoured, as they supplied water. But now it seems those gods are losing their powers. Researchers say that the glaciers are in dramatic retreat across the Andes due to rising temperatures. In the small village […]
By AMY GOODMAN Published: Friday, April 23, 2010 at 3:00 a.m. COCHABAMBA, Bolivia Here in this small Andean nation of 10 million people, the glaciers are melting, threatening the water supply of the largest urban area in the country, El Alto and La Paz, with 3.5 million people living at altitudes over 10,000 feet. I […]
By ANDREW WHALEN, Associated Press Writer – 18 April 2010 CERRO DE PASCO, Peru – The mile-wide gash grows almost daily with each dynamite blast, slowly devouring this bleak provincial capital high in the Andes. The half-century-old, open-pit zinc and lead mine belches streamers of dust that coat homes. The soil is so contaminated, indigenous […]
April 12, 2010 – 10:29AM (AFP) Around 50 people have suffered injuries in Peru after part of a glacier broke off and burst the Hualcan River banks in a disaster the local governor attributed to climate change. The mass of glacial ice and rock fell into the so-called “513 lake” in the northern Ancash region, […]
Rise tied to warming and receding glaciers By Larry O’Hanlonupdated 12:49 p.m. PT, Wed., Jan. 27, 2010 Mountains along the southernmost swath of South America are growing taller at a record rate, say researchers, who attribute the growth to the accelerating loss of glaciers there. The new GPS-based measurements from Patagonia’s southern ice field show […]
In 1998, scientists predicted that the Chacaltaya glacier above La Paz would have completely disappeared by 2015. Now experts say it will already be gone completely early this year. The 2 million residents of the city of La Paz and its suburb El Alto depend on the surrounding glaciers for some of their water needs. […]
Reuters: Climate change and the fast diminishing glaciers in the Andes are posing a serious threat to water supplies in the Bolivian highlands. The rapid pace at which glaciers are melting in the Andes mountain range is posing a serious threat to the water supply of many Andean countries, and particularly Bolivia. Scientists expect that […]
COPENHAGEN—The Altiplano, or high plain, of Bolivia and Peru is getting a new climate. In the past 60 years temperatures have risen, rainfall patterns have changed and soils have begun to dry out even further. As a result, farmers move their crops further up the mountainsides, like endangered species seeking refuge at cooler elevations. Floods […]
By ELISABETH ROSENTHALPublished: December 13, 2009 EL ALTO, Bolivia — When the tap across from her mud-walled home dried up in September, Celia Cruz stopped making soups and scaled back washing for her family of five. She began daily pilgrimages to better-off neighborhoods, hoping to find water there. Though she has lived here for a […]
Perfect Storm: Unless the nation of Peru takes immediate action, the ancient Andean glaciers could disappear, taking with them the runoff that provides much of the water for the country’s most populous areas. NBC’s Anne Thompson reports. Posted: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 4:32 PMFiled Under: On AssignmentBy Anne Thompson, NBC News’ Chief Environmental Affairs Correspondent […]
