A severe drought parching northern Brazil shrunk the Rio Negro (Black River) – one of the most important tributaries of the Amazon River – to its lowest level in more than a century. At their point of confluence, the Amazon's depth fell more than 12 feet below its average.
In the jungle city of Manaus, where the Black River merges with the Amazon and it should be at its deepest, its depth fell to 45 feet (13.6 meters) in October, the shallowest it has been since records began in 1902. Local authorities reported that nearly half of Amazonia's 62 municipalities declared a state of emergency. The drought conditions affected more than 60,000 families.
