Original title: The reporter of the main station directly hit丨The drought in Suriname caused the water level of the river to drop and affect the lives of the people along the coast
Suriname, located in the northeastern corner of the South American continent, has not seen large-scale rainfall for eight months, and the increasing drought in the region has caused a severe decline in the flow of the largest river, the Suriname River, which has had a huge impact on the lives of people in the basin who rely on boat operations as the main mode of transportation.
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On April 5, local time, a reporter from the main station set off by car from Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, and traveled south. Along the way, you can see that in the long tropical rainforest, there are patches of tall trees that have withered, some have just been burned by the fire, and the smoke has not completely dissipated. Two and a half hours later, the reporters arrived at the small town of Ajani on the banks of the Suriname River, a key hub for land and water transport in the downstream region.
Reporter Wang Yuguo: There is a river transport wharf in the small town of Adrani. We saw that there were a lot of supplies on the small boat here, and there were plastic drums with fuel oil on this side, and the boatmen were carrying them. In fact, at the beginning of April in previous years, the water level on the river was much higher than it is now. Normally, the water level reaches this height, but due to the drought, the river water level is about two meters lower than normal this year.
According to reports, this kind of small clipper was originally generally used to carry passengers, but since this year, as the water level of the Suriname River has dropped, they have become the absolute main force of water freight transportation by virtue of the advantage of a very shallow draft. But even they are facing more and more difficulties in the shipping process.
Reporter Wang Yuguo: Now there are some dangers in this small boat. The boatman was struggling to pull the boat upstream. Now the danger has finally been saved, and the dangerous shoal has basically passed.
According to the boatmen, since August last year, the scarcity of rainfall in the Suriname River basin has caused the water level of the river to continue to drop, and the rocks that were originally deep underwater have also been exposed, forming a series of dangerous shoals, which not only prevent the passage of large and medium-sized boats, but also small clippers. When the water is high, these boats only need one driver to navigate unhindered, but now only two additional helpers can be hired to help them navigate the rapids, which naturally increases the cost of transportation. In supermarkets in the town of Achoni, a 10-kilogram bag of rice costs 400 Su Yuan (about 83 yuan), but the freight cost of transporting a bag of rice by boat to a village 45 kilometers upstream has doubled to the price of half a bag of rice.
After a three-hour boat ride, the reporter arrived at the village of Patranpti upstream. Local villagers said in interviews that the drought that lasted for more than half a year not only caused problems for the supply of materials and people's travel, but also caused abnormal crop growth in the mountainous areas.
Harry, Patrananti: We have three crops here, peanuts, cassava and sweet potatoes, and you see only cassava has survived, and the other two have not survived.
According to the pattern of previous years, the rainy season will enter in April. But this year has been extremely unusual. If large-scale rains are delayed and self-grown crops fail severely, local villagers' dependence on external supplies will further increase, and life will become more difficult.
Source: CCTV news client