El Nino Torments South America
No region on Earth can claim to have endured more El Nino-related troubles this year than South America. The weather phenomenon has exacted a costly toll in destroyed property and human lives. And the economic costs have been staggering. From Guyana in the north to Chile in the south, farmers, fishermen, manufacturers and retailers have suffered devastating losses since El Nino's warm waters slammed into South America's Pacific coast.
"El Nino's economic impact on South America is negative, and in some parts it is disastrous, especially the Andean countries," said Robert Gay, director of Latin American research at the New York-based Bankers Trust investment bank.
Across the continent, El Nino is battering economies. Its rains are washing away vast swaths of farm land. Mudslides are burying highways and bridges, paralyzing commerce. At the opposite extreme droughts are threatening large chunks of Brazil's Amazon and withering crops in Venezuela and Colombia.
In Peru and Ecuador, which traditionally bear El Nino's brunt, more than 300 people have died and 250,000 people have been driven from their homes since December. Towns have disappeared under water and mud, and their residents are beginning the costly task of rebuilding their homes and businesses.
El Nino has slowed a spurt of economic growth in Peru. After growing at a sizzling 7.6 percent in 1997, Peru most likely will see its 1998 growth drop to 2 percent because of El Nino, Bankers Trust says.
CBS News Correspondent Bill Whitaker reports that this season's El Nino has also taken a drastic toll on Machu Pichu, the definitive Peruvian landmark. Heavy rains are eroding ancient Inca terraces that have stood for centuries and endured countless El Ninos.
In neighboring Ecuador, the government estimates it will take $2 billion to repair El Nino's damage to roads, bridges and other infrastructure.
A landslide last week caused by El Nino-driven rains cracked Ecuador's largest oil pipeline and sparked an explosion and fire that killed 11 people, burned 80 and dumped 8,000 barrels of crude oil into a river.
The blaze near the northern port of Esmeraldas temporarily interrupted oil flow from Ecuador's Lake Agria oil fields in its interior jungle.
Traffic on Peru's economically important Pan American highway was blocked at 18 points this weekend by El Nino-driven floods or mudslides, leaving truckloads of produce to rot and raising food prices in Lima markets.
President Alberto Fujimori on Monday ordered navy ships to transport fruits and vegetables from the northern port of Paita to Lima to circumvent the highway blockages.
In Chimbote, the center of Peru's lucrative fishing industry, anchovy catches have fallen from 25 million to five million tons a day as El Nino's warm waters drive away schools of cold-water anchovies.
Elsehere, the economy of tiny Guyana is teetering on the brink of disaster as an El Nino-powered drought has dried up rivers and streams, forcing hundreds of miners to abandon remote gold mines in the jungle reachable only by boat.
Mining officials say gold production, which accounts for 40 percent of Guyana's exports, is expected to tumble by 40 percent this year. Guyana's agriculture also is being devastated by drought.
Drought has also struck Colombia, causing 7,000 forest fires and drying up so much farm land that experts are predicting a 7 percent drop in farm production in 1998. In Venezuela, droughts have led hydroelectrical plants to ration power.
In Brazil, the worst drought in 25 years has accelerated fires that have spread to virgin sections of the Amazon rain forest. By most estimates, at least 10 percent of the 2 million square-mile Amazon has been destroyed.
In Chile, El Nino's warm waters have driven off cold-water fish, damaging its fishing industry. El Nino's impact, however, is not all bad. Construction is booming as families in Peru and Ecuador rebuild houses and governments repair highways and bridges. Soft drink and ice cream sellers are setting sales records.
Parts of Lima's bone-dry northern desert have turned green due to El Nino's rains. A 50-mile-long lake dubbed "La Nina" by local residents has formed in the desert near the city of Piura, attracting birds and wildlife.
©1998 CBS Worldwide Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report