A new report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has shown that hunger and disease are rising in Latin America after a year of record heat, floods and drought.
Brazil, which is the biggest country in Latin America, experienced record winter heat in excess of 41C and severe droughts in the Amazon rainforest, where the Rio Negro recorded its lowest level in more than 120 years of observations, fires raged around Manaus and more than 100 baiji river dolphins died in the hot, shallow, polluted waters of Lake Tefé.
Mexico had a record high of 51.4C on 29 August, and many areas sweltered in a prolonged heatwave. By the end of the year, 76% of Mexico was experiencing some degree of drought. In October Acapulco was hit by the first ever category 5 hurricane to make landfall on the Pacific coastline. Hurricane Otis killed at least 48 people, damaged 80% of the city’s hotels and left damages calculated at $12bn.
Other areas of Central and South America endured unusually fierce heat and prolonged drought. The Panama Canal had 41% less rainfall than normal, causing difficulties for one of the most important conduits of world trade.
The study showed that the continent, which is trapped between the freakishly hot Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, probably suffered tens of thousands of climate-related deaths in 2023, at least $21bn (£17bn) of economic damage and “the greatest calorific loss” of any region.
The climate chaos, which was caused by a combination of human-driven global heating and a natural El Niño effect, is continuing with devastating floods in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, which have killed at least 95 people and deluged swathes of farmland after the world’s hottest April in human history.
Global heat records have now been broken for 11 months in a row, causing death and destruction across many parts of the planet. Latin America and the Caribbean have experienced some of the worst effects.
The WMO said that disasters and climate change, along with socioeconomic shocks, are the main drivers of acute food insecurity, which affects 13.8 million people In a summary of last year’s toll in this region.
As the climate warms, diseases are spreading across a greater area. The WMO noted that more than 3m cases of dengue fever were reported in the first seven months of 2023, breaking the previous annual record for the region. Uruguay experienced its first cases of chikungunya and Chile widened alerts about the Aedes aegypti mosquito vector.
There were an average of 36,695 heat-related excess deaths each year in the region in the first two decades of this century. Last year’s toll has not yet been calculated, but it is likely to exceed the average given the record temperatures and prolonged heatwaves in many areas.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
