Huge tracts of South America have been blanketed in smoke from largely man-made wildfires that are raging from Ecuador's droughtstricken capital to Paraguay's Chaco forest to the backlands of the greatest tropical jungle on Earth.
The smoke has been so dramatic that passenger planes have been unable to land in Rondônia's riverside capital, Porto Velho, and schools have been forced to close.
The government polyclinic run by Dr Lilian Samara de Melo Lima has seen a surge in patients suffering respiratory complaints, migraines and eye inflammation.
"These days we can't even see the other bank of the river," said the GP as she sheltered inside her clinic from the smog.
Lima, 45, was born and raised in Rondônia and has witnessed the toxic impact of wildfires before, as cattle ranchers and soy farmers use the Amazon's annual "burning season" to clear land and carve new properties out of the region's fastshrinking rainforests.
"But this year has been truly atypical," she added, blaming man's "devastating, predatory, reckless" march into areas that a few decades ago were largely unexplored.
For Porto Velho's 500,000 residents, the blazes have been suffocating. "We're breathing in so much detritus," said its health secretary, Marilene Penati, a paediatrician.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة October 03, 2024 من The Guardian.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة October 03, 2024 من The Guardian.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
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