Floods rip through the driest place on Earth (Photo : Reuters)
The Atacama Desert in Chile, the driest place on Earth, has been hit by massive heavy flooding that killed two persons and was caused by unusually warm weather that turned snow into rain.
With a size of 105,000 square kilometers (41,000 square miles), the Atacama Desert receives only 15 millimeters (0.6 inch) of rainfall every year and is the world's driest non-polar desert. That's obviously no longer the case.
The enormous floods were triggered by an unexpected overflow of Chile's Copiapo River caused by heavy rains that should have fallen as snow but instead came down as a torrent of rain because of the warmer weather in the Andes Mountains.
The heavy rain beginning Tuesday in northern Chile's Andes Mountains sent water thundering into valleys below, bursting the banks of the Copiapo River and inundating the nearby city of Copiapo.
Chilean emergency officials said the flooding destroyed roads and knocked out communications. They said 38,000 persons were without power and 48,000 without drinkable water, according to UPI.
The interior ministry told persons living in the Atacama region to evacuate. The Chilean military is using helicopters to rescue residents trapped by widespread mudslides.
Chile's government declared a state of emergency in the region and placed the region under military control. President Michelle Bachelet flew to the Atacama to observe the problems first hand.
Scientists say the Atacama Desert, or the "Desierto de Atacama", might be the oldest desert on Earth. The desert might have experienced extreme hyperaridity for at least three million years, making it the oldest continuously arid region on Earth.
