Flash floods take dramatic toll in Lima and northern Peru

Yahoo – AFP, Luis Jaime CISNEROS, Carlos MANDUJANO, 18 March 2017

Residents of the Huachipa populous district, east of Lima, are helped on
March 17, 2017, by police and firemen rescue teams to cross over flash floods
hitting their neighbourhood and isolating its residents

Flash floods and landslides hit parts of Lima, leaving some communities cut off from roads Saturday, as others in Peru fled rising rivers, and millions fretted that they won't have drinking water.

The government announced Saturday that so far this year 72 people have died as a result of heavy rains and flash floods around the country.

Peru's geographic extremes help fuel the often deadly force of the mudslides known locally as huaycos, the indigenous Quechua word for flash flood-landslide.

The South American nation of over 30 million has plenty of extremes: its Pacific coastal deserts in the west are interrupted by the soaring Andes, famed for the Inca people and Machu Picchu in the south. Further east, Peru has hot Amazon basin lowlands.

The tremendously steep mountains combine with many rocky and sandy areas that lack the topsoil found in more temperate places, meaning fewer trees are there to stop mudslides.

After weeks of heavy rain swept toward the coast late this week, many riverbeds in coastal areas went from empty to overflowing in no time.

In Lima, some residents on the outskirts of the capital of 10 million awoke Friday to realize their bedrooms were filling with water.

On Thursday and Friday, 10 people died in a landslide in the northern town of Otuzco. Seven of them were in trucks crushed by the huge flow of earth.

Others found themselves cut off by mudslides that blocked portions of the main highway linking Lima to the center of the country.

In one dramatic scene, rescuers used zip lines to help residents of Lima's Huachipa neighborhood escape over the torrent of brown water that was once their street, as it swallowed up cars and trucks.

The floods have been triggered by the weather event known as El Nino, a warming of surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that wreaks havoc on weather patterns every few years.

Men take a shower with water from a municipal cistern in Lima on March 18, 2017

 after weeks of heavy rain came sweeping toward the Peruvian coast and filled 

many riverbeds in coastal areas that went from empty to overflowing in no time

'A difficult situation'

But this year it has hit Peru particularly hard.

"It's a difficult situation, there's no doubt about it. But we have the resources" to deal with it, said President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

The government announced it would release 2.5 billion soles ($760 million) in emergency funds to rebuild affected areas.

Over half a million people were getting assistance.

While Peruvians have been dealing with huaycos for centuries, many poor residents of cities and towns build makeshift homes in areas that they may not realize could be flash-flood zones.

At times, authorities tell different groups to move, but they voice frustration that they have nowhere to go. And authorities' presence in the poorest peripheral districts, many perched on mountainsides, can be inconsistent.

The inundation came as the National Emergency Operations Center said at least 72 people have been killed in Peru this year in natural disasters. A total of 72,115 have lost their homes.

Some opposition politicians have called for the president to declare a national state of emergency, instead of local ones.

Among them were a few lawmakers urging Kuczynski to drop a bid for Lima to host the 2019 Pan-American Games so that more funds could be used for recovery efforts.

Residents of a populous district of Lima queue to collect drinking water from

a municipal tank truck on March 17, 2017

Roads become rivers

In metro Lima -- areas such as Huachipa as well as Carapongo -- locals had to form human chains to avoid being swept away to their death.

Police and firefighters also used zip lines to evacuate people from the roofs of their homes.

Frank Luis Limache, a resident of Huachipa, told El Comercio he was trapped with a group of more than 30 people.

"Please. Help us. We are trapped in here and haven't eaten since last night," he said.

The Rimac River in Lima toppled a pedestrian bridge linking El Agustino and San Juan de Lurigancho.

In the Punta Hermosa district south of Lima, a getaway of posh beach flats, the usual upscale quiet was jarred by a huayco that on Wednesday swept a farm woman, 32, far from her farm, leaving her standing awkwardly near the beach with her bloodied cow. Caked in mud, her distraught image has become one of the local symbols of this flash-flood season.

Meanwhile, city authorities slapped tight restrictions on drinking water use due to worries over the cloudiness of local river water.

Those who could afford it, pounced on supermarkets and neighborhood shops to buy drinking water, causing shortages in many areas. In less-well-off areas, people lined up to fill buckets from tanker trucks.

Brazil mine disaster company settles for $6.2 billion

Yahoo – AFP, Eugenia Logiuratto, 3 March 2016

A fireman rescues a dog that was trapped in the mud that swept through Bento 

Rodrigues, in Minas Gerais, Brazil on November 9, 2015 (AFP Photo/Douglas Magno)

Brasília (AFP) - The owners of an iron ore mine in Brazil where a burst dam spewed a toxic flood, flattening a village and killing 19 people, settled with the government Wednesday for $6.2 billion.

Representatives of Samarco -- co-owned by Brazil's Vale iron ore giant and the Anglo-Australian BHP Billiton, the world's biggest mining company -- signed the accord in the capital Brasilia.

President Dilma Rousseff said the settlement would help heal "a tragedy without precedent."

The funds, which will go toward social and environmental damages, will be paid out over 15 years.

BHP Billiton's chief commercial officer Dean Dalla Valle (L) attends the signing

 of the agreement between Brazil's federal government, the states of Minas Gerais

 and Espirito Santo, and mining company Samarco in Brasilia on March 2, 2016

(AFP Photo/Evaristo Sa)

Twenty billion reais ($5.1 billion) is earmarked for damages and an extra 4.4 billion reais ($1.1 billion) is specifically allocated for investments aimed at providing compensation for irredeemable losses.

Rousseff underlined that the heavy financial costs for Samarco might not end there.

"There will be complete restoration of socio-economic conditions and of the affected environment. And I want to emphasize: There will be no financial limits until there is full reparation," she said.

"We want to build a new life on the ruins."

Destruction and 'homicide'

The November 5 accident near Mariana in Minas Gerais state began when a tailings dam at Samarco's mine failed, unleashing the flood of polluted water and mud into the River Doce, one of the most important in Brazil.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff attends the signing of the agreement between 

the federal government, the states of Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo (Southeast 

Brazil) and mining company Samarco, at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, on 

March 2, 2016 (AFP Photo/Evaristo Sa)

A village was destroyed, drinking water supplies for hundreds of thousands of people were interrupted and damage reached as far as the river's mouth on the Atlantic coast, with wildlife, tourism businesses and fishing communities all suffering.

Seventeen people were confirmed killed and two are missing, presumed dead.

BHP Billiton CEO Andrew Mackenzie called the agreement an important step toward recovery and said his company was making a "commitment to repairing the damage caused and to contributing to a lasting improvement in the Rio Doce."

Paulo Hartung, governor of Espirito Santo state, which also straddles the River Doce, said the toxic flood marked "the biggest environmental disaster in the history of Brazil."

Last month, police announced homicide charges against six Samarco executives, including the CEO at the time of the accident, and an engineer.

A general view on November 6, 2015 of the village of Bento Rodrigues, in Mariana,

Brazil where a dam burst at a mining waste site (AFP Photo/Douglas Magno)

Samarco and its powerful owners could still face further legal difficulties, despite Wednesday's deal.

Last week, a federal prosecutor said that he would challenge the settlement, arguing that not enough care was taken in assessing the true costs of the disaster.

"How can you define an amount if there are no criteria for evaluating the damage?" Jose Adercio Leite Sampaio said. "Where did they get this number? For us, it's a magic number... It could be 23 or 24, 30, 40 billion."

Vale reported last week that it lost $12.3 billion last year due to lower prices for iron ore, the sharp depreciation of the real, and the deadly accident at the Samarco mine. The 2015 loss followed a 2014 profit of $657 million.

Bolivia, Peru sign $500 mn deal for Lake Titicaca clean-up

Yahoo – AFP, January 8, 2016

Lake Titicaca, which is the highest in the world, at an altitude of 3,800 meters
(12,470 feet) above sea level, provides a habitat for a number of frogs, birds
and fish, including two species that have almost been wiped out (AFP Photo
/Aizar Raldes)

La Paz (AFP) - Bolivia and Peru agreed to provide more than $500 million towards cleaning up Lake Titicaca, whose polluted waters are home to some animals nearing extinction, a Bolivian environment official said.

The deal, which is meant to improve the lake's biodiversity, includes environmental management and recovery through to 2025.

Lake Titicaca, which is the highest in the world, at an altitude of 3,800 meters (12,470 feet) above sea level, provides a habitat for a number of frogs, birds and fish, including two species that have almost been wiped out.

Bolivia's Environment and Water Minister Alexandra Moreira and her Peruvian counterpart Manuel Pulgar signed the agreement during a public event.

"For the short term we have a limit of $117 million and for the long term $400 million," said Moreira's advisor Sergio Arispe.

“It's a logistical matter we are trying to manage through 2025," he said.

Part of the waste in the lake is generated by the Bolivian city of El Alto, near La Paz, which is home to about 800,000 people.

Peru's minister stressed that the two countries are "already taking concrete actions such as investing in water treatment plants to address the main problems the lake is facing."

Pearl Jam donates concert proceeds to Brazil mine victims

Yahoo – AFP, 21 Nov 2015

Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam performs during the fourth annual Global Citizen
 Festival in Central Park Manhattan on September 26, 2015 in New York
 (AFP Photo/Kena Betancur)

Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - US rock group Pearl Jam donated proceeds from a concert in Brazil to victims of a toxic mining spill that killed 12 people and was the country's worst environmental disaster.

The group's singer Eddie Vedder interrupted a show Friday night in Belo Horizonte, capital of the southeast state of Minas Gerais -- where the disaster occurred November 5 -- and called for the mining company involved to be severely punished.

As seen on a video on the news website G1, the group got a standing ovation when Vedder said the take from that concert would go to victims of the disaster.

It struck when a dam collapsed at the waste reservoirs of an iron ore mine, unleashing a torrent of yellowish muck that all but buried a village, left 280,000 people without water and smothered thousands of fish, turtles and other animals.

Besides the 12 dead, another 12 people remain missing.

The mining facility is owned by Samarco, a joint venture between the mining giants BHP Billiton of Australia and Vale of Brazil.

Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said Friday it was the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history and that it will take 30 years to clean the basin of the Doce River, into which the sludge flowed.

Samarco has already been hit with damages, fines and frozen funds totalling more than $400 million.

Related Article:

Australia's Barrier Reef 'risks becoming dumping ground': WWF

Moroccan villagers harvest fog for water supply

Yahoo – AFP, Zakaria Choukrallah, 19 June 2015

A Moroccan inspects fog fences in a hamlet on the outskirts of the southern

coastal city of Sidi Ifni, on June 7, 2015 (AFP Photo/Fadel Senna)

Sidi Ifni (Morocco) (AFP) - Green technology to turn fog into fresh water straight from the tap has put an end to exhausting daily treks to distant wells by village women in southwest Morocco.

Families in five highland Berber communities have begun to benefit from "fog harvesting", a technique devised in Chile two decades ago and since taken up in countries from Peru to Namibia and South Africa.

On the summit of a mountain named Boutmezguida, which looms over the villages at 1,225 metres (4,019 feet), thick fog shrouds about 40 finely meshed panels designed to trap water and relay it to a network of pipes.

A Moroccan woman uses water collected 

on fog fences to wash her hands in a 

hamlet on the outskirts of the southern

 coastal city of Sidi Ifni, on June 7, 2015

(AFP Photo/Fadel Senna)

To have water running from a faucet at home is a "revolution" for inhabitants of the semi-arid mountains known as the Anti-Atlas, says Aissa Derhem, the chairman of an active regional association called Dar Si Hmad for Development, Education and Culture (DSH).

DSH prides itself on building "the world's largest fog-collection and distribution system" and helping locals in the Sidi Ifni region -- Derhem's birthplace -- to learn to operate it, after repeated droughts and scarce rain.

"Our rain here is the fog," Derhem adds.

Tiny droplets are caught on the mesh while fog wafts through panels. The harvesters mix all they catch with more water derived from drilling, then supply the villages on the lower slopes.

Derhem first heard about fog harvesting 20 years ago. A few years later on returning to Sidi Ifni, he realised that the local climate was similar to that of the Andes in South America.

DSH joined forces with Fog Quest, a Canadian charity whose volunteers work in a range of developing countries. North Africa's first pilot project became operational after almost a decade's work refining techniques.

'An imitation of nature'

The valves were opened at Sidi Ifni for the first time to mark World Water Day, March 22. Ever since, "92 households, or nearly 400 people," have enjoyed running water at home, says Mounir Abbar, the project's technical manager.

Aissa Derhem, the president of the "Dar Si Hamed for development, education

 and culture" association touches a fog fence in a hamlet on the outskirts of the

southern coastal city of Sidi Ifni, on June 7, 2015 (AFP Photo/Fadel Senna)

"Morocco has a lot of fog because of three phenomena: the presence of an anticyclone from the Azores (north Atlantic islands), a cold air current and a mountainous obstacle," Derhem says.

The mesh that traps water is "merely an imitation of nature," he adds, pointing out how spiders have always caught minute droplets of water in their webs.

"This is ecological and enables us to look after the regional water table, which we have been emptying away," Derhem says.

The scheme will be extended to other villages and, in time, advocates hope, to other parts of the country.

In the village of Douar Id Achour, residents are proud of their new taps, for good reason. Women and children used to spend an average of four hours a day on a round trip to a well, even longer in dry summer.

"I filled two 20-litre (5.3-gallon) containers four times a day," says Massouda Boukhalfa, 47. "But even those 160 litres wasn't enough for us, because we have cattle as well."

'Ready for export'

During droughts, water was carried in by tanker trunk. "That took a fortnight and cost 150 dirhams (13.7 euros), $15.6) for 5,000 litres on average," young resident Houcine Soussane recalls.

According to Dar Si Hmad, 7,000 litres of fog water cost three times less than before, even with a fee of 20 dirhams to each household for the right to a counter.

Thick fog is trapped by finely meshed panels and relayed it to a network of pipes

(AFP Photo/Fadel Senna)

Villagers today have more time to collect the nutty fruit of argan trees and extract its prized and potentially lucrative oil, used in cooking, skin care and easing arthritis. Reputed as an anti-ageing product, argan oil has been taken up abroad as an ingredient in high-end cosmetics.

"Our women and daughters no longer wear themselves out. They go to school and are safe," 54 year-old villager Lahcen Hammou Ali sums up. "With the time saved, we can pay for water all year by producing a bottle of argan oil."

DSH next wants to supply fog water to as many villages as possible in the area. It also plans to replace mesh in the panels with a new variety that can resist wind speeds of 120 kilometres per hour (75 mph).

The panels were perfected on Moroccan soil with help from the German charity Wasserstiftung, and successfully passed the testing phase.

"The nets are now ready for export to other towns in Morocco, in all the mountainous regions and along the seafront," Derham says, hopeful they can be deployed in all highland areas where fogbanks are frequent.

Related Article:

Advert turns air into drinking water

Colombia races to meet Valentine's Day rose demand

Yahoo – AFP, Alina Dieste, 12 Feb 2015

Workers prepare roses for export at a farm in Nemocon, Cundinamarca

department, Colombia on February 2, 2015 (AFP Photo/Eitan Abramovich)

Nemocon (Colombia) (AFP) - Work is hectic these days for El Redil, as the flower company based in the savanna surrounding the Colombian capital Bogota hurries to meet orders from all over the world for Valentine's Day.

"If you don't do well in Valentine's it's a lost year," said manager Fernando Arenas during an AFP tour of the fragrant-smelling rose farms in the town of Nemocon.

A worker selects flowers at a farm in 

Nemocon, Cundinamarca department,

 Colombia on February 2, 2015 (AFP

Photo/Eitan Abramovich)

"We want to take three million stems from this farm," added Arenas, as he walked through the company's greenhouses, while busy women in leather gloves clipped roses of all colors.

Dozens of workers dethorn the roses, classify them and transfer the flowers to wire racks, as well as prepare attractive bouquets that they hope will make someone's Valentine's Day.

The flowers are shipped fresh to people thousands of miles away and kept cold throughout their journey. Refrigerated trucks take the flowers to an airport in Colombia and from there they go to the rest of the world.

Miami and Amsterdam are the two main global distribution points.

Yellow roses are popular among young people, lilacs are preferred by the Japanese, but mostly the classic red are the roses chosen for Valentine's Day, the El Redil staff said.

The popular rose of the time "is a matter of fashion," said Arenas.

Colombia -- the world's second-largest flower exporter after the Netherlands -- ships up to 1,000 different types of flower, including exotic orchids, but the rose is the undisputed queen.

Colombia is celebrating its 50th anniversary of the flower export business, and helping its rise to the top is the role of the United States market as its star client.

Workers prepare roses for export at a

farm in Nemocon, Cundinamarca

department, Colombia on February 2,

2015 (AFP Photo/Eitan Abramovich)

The United States makes up about 75 percent of the Latin American country's sales, followed by Russia, Japan and Britain, according to Asocolflores, the group that brings together most flower producers in Colombia.

Arenas said the last Valentine's Day flower shipment was scheduled for February 9, but the weather can play havoc: 2010 was a black year for sales after a freeze destroyed crops, he said.

Cupid cash

Valentine's Day represents 12 percent of annual flower sales in Colombia.

Colombia's $1.34 billion in annual flower exports puts the country second to the Netherlands and ahead of Ecuador and Kenya.

Colombia's tropical climate helps it compete. The country can send shipments not only for Valentine's Day but for most major celebrations, including holidays in Russia, Spain and Japan, all year round.

The industry generates some 130,000 direct and indirect jobs, or about 15 people per acre -- seven times more than coffee plantations.

Workers prepare roses at a farm in Nemocon, Cundinamarca department,

Colombia on February 2, 2015 (AFP Photo/Eitan Abramovich)

Colombia's flower business, while booming, has had to confront numerous challenges: attracting workers for the manual labor can be difficult, and so is competing with lower labor costs in Africa.

"Water scarcity, lack of sun, snow preventing on-time production, all of that affects the sector," president of Asocolflores, Augusto Solano, told AFP.

The organization claims those difficulties have led to a decreasing profit margin over the years.

"I wish it was the month of Valentine's, not just the day," a rueful Solano said.

Alfredo Zolezzi: how a plasma water purifying system is saving lives

Wired.co.uk, Nicholas Tufnell, 17 October 2013

"If we can connect people and their needs with the advancement of technology we will make a better world" claims Alfredo Zolezzi during his talk at Wired 2013.

Zolezzi is a Chilean industrial designer and an expert in applied technological innovations. He has created an integrated objectives model which he says allows for him to improve technological innovation and create greater social, emotional and developmental impact.

Alfredo Zolezzi (Nate Lanxon)

"For many years I was involved in innovation, but I discovered I was using 80 percent of my time just surviving and had little time to create," explains Zolezzi. "So I decided to study the innovation models that were already out there, but there were none. So I wrote my own innovation model and soon after I started creating some of my most effective products."

Zolezzi soon developed technology that enhanced the recovery of oil from abandoned oil wells "using high-frequency and high-powered ultrasound waves." He wished to innovate further to create new technologies that could significantly reduce the cost of refining oil, but something held him back.

"I could have made billions," he said, "but there is no future if we do not change the way we are addressing our current problems. Only 2.5 billion people have to access to clean water, we cannot ignore that reality. We are living the future but we are still struggling with the problems from the past."

Wishing to refocus his efforts on humanitarian needs, Zolezzi set out to create a novel way of purifying water. The answer was found in plasma.

Zolezzi created a plasma sanitation system that can sanitise 35 litres of water in five minutes at a cost per litre of less than one penny. The system injects water into a reaction chamber, where it achieves plasma state through a high-intensity electrical field. The microbiological content of the water is then eliminated by electroporation, oxidation, ionization, UV and IR radiation.

"This technology won't remove impurities like salt or heavy metals, but it will kill bacteria," Zolezzi explained. "In our last test, the plasma procedure killed off 100 percent of bacteria with 100 percent efficacy."

The system has been used in a Chilean slum, where Zolezzi says it has "improved their health, dignity and quality of life in an instant".

Zolezzi closed his speech remarking that his technology alone isn't enough, it's crucial that social technology is used in conjunction with this his new device to ensure people are aware of its existence and importance. He left the stage reminding us to "just think that there is always someone who is not as privileged as we are. We have problems, but all this privilege that we have is also our commitment".

Related Articles:

In Peru, a Highway Billboard That Turns Wind into Water

"2013 - What Now ?" – Jan 6, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Text version)

“… New ideas are things you never thought of. These ideas will be given to you so you will have answers to the most profound questions that your societies have had since you were born. Inventions will bring clean water to every Human on the planet, cheaply and everywhere. Inventions will give you power, cheaply and everywhere. These ideas will wipe out all of the reasons you now have for pollution, and when you look back on it, you'll go, "This solution was always there. Why didn't we think of that? Why didn't we do this sooner?" Because it wasn't time and you were not ready. You hadn't planted the seeds and you were still battling the old energy, deciding whether you were going to terminate yourselves before 2012. Now you didn't…. and now you didn't.

It's funny, what you ponder about, and what your sociologists consider the "great current problems of mankind", for your new ideas will simply eliminate the very concepts of the questions just as they did in the past. Do you remember? Two hundred years ago, the predictions of sociologists said that you would run out of food, since there wasn't enough land to sustain a greater population. Then you discovered crop rotation and fertilizer. Suddenly, each plot of land could produce many times what it could before. Do you remember the predictions that you would run out of wood to heat your homes? Probably not. That was before electricity. It goes on and on.

So today's puzzles are just as quaint, as you will see. (1)How do you strengthen the power grids of your great nations so that they are not vulnerable to failure or don't require massive infrastructure improvement expenditures? Because cold is coming, and you are going to need more power. (2) What can you do about pollution? (3) What about world overpopulation? Some experts will tell you that a pandemic will be the answer; nature [Gaia] will kill off about one-third of the earth's population. The best minds of the century ponder these puzzles and tell you that you are headed for real problems. You have heard these things all your life.

Let me ask you this. (1) What if you could eliminate the power grid altogether? You can and will. (2) What if pollution-creating sources simply go away, due to new ideas and invention, and the environment starts to self-correct? (3) Overpopulation? You assume that humanity will continue to have children at an exponential rate since they are stupid and can't help themselves. This, dear ones, is a consciousness and education issue, and that is going to change. Imagine a zero growth attribute of many countries - something that will be common. Did you notice that some of your children today are actually starting to ponder if they should have any children at all? What a concept! ….”

"The Time Capsule of Gaia" – Feb 9, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“… Ideas and Inventions Are Not Random

Now, I want to revisit this because we're coming to the point of what I want to speak of, which we have not spoken of before. It seems unbelievable, but the fact is that ideas and inventions are given to the planet when it's ready, and not before. We told you last time that humanity believes it can "think of anything." The intellectual believes the sky is the limit in creativity. Yet, isn't it interesting that everything profound in ideas and inventions has come almost at the last moment? When you take a look at humanity and how long you've been here and how long there have been smart Human Beings, why is it that only in the last seeming second of time that almost all modern invention took place?

Imagine going through thousands of years without understanding what a bacteria was, or not believing in germs, or not having electricity. When you think about these things and the order in which they came to the planet, it's quite revealing. Many Humans were working on the same invention at the same time and didn't even know it. Suddenly, you received the invention of radio, then pictures that fly through the air, then flight. It all came together seemingly in the last moment. You've got to ask, do you not, how logical is this in the scheme of how things work? Did you have to come to a certain point in history before Humans got smart? Or do you think there was something else going on? The answer is there was something else going on. It seemed as though these ideas were being "delivered" to the planet all at the same time, and many were understanding these things suddenly all at once.

The Time Capsules

Here is what happened: Within that which you call Gaia, there is the Crystalline Grid. This is the memory of all things placed there by the Pleiadians. The Crystalline Grid was created for this purpose by the Pleiadians. When it's proper and when humanity's consciousness has reached a certain point, these ideas are released. It is a time capsule of invention and more. This does not happen from the great central sun; it does not happen from outside the earth, but rather it happens from within. …”

In Peru, a Highway Billboard That Turns Wind into Water

Worldcrunch, 22 February 2013

LIMA - You've seen highway billboards advertising some rest-stop or hotel: "Oasis, Next Exit." Now in Peru, there's a billboard that actually is itself something of an oasis.

The Technology and Engineering University of Peru has installed a billboard panel along the Panamericana Sur (PanAmerican highway) highway that generates 96 liters of drinkable water a day with a built-in humidity condenser.

Under the slogan “ingenuity in action”, the Lima university team designed the billboard and installed it on kilometer 89.5 of the Peruvian section of the major Latin American highway.

Alejandro Aponte, the project’s chief explains the inner workings of the panel: “Inside the panel are five machines that absorb environmental humidity and then, through an electronic multi-filtering system (activated carbon, antistatic filters and UV lamps), the water is purified and turned into a ready-to-drink source."

Aponte says each machine produces 28 liters of water every day, and needs a minimum humidity percentage of at least 70% in the environment, which is normal in Lima.

The water produced is available for anyone who wants to stop and take it. A storage tank holds the water that neighbors or spontaneous thirsty drivers stop by to collect -- or just have a drink.

“The concept of this project is to show people how technology and engineering can change the world," says Juan Donalisio, from the Mayo agency, which launched the campaign together with Humberto Polar and Aponte. "This is why I wanted to expose one of my applications live and in public. So it is tangible and useful for people."

Related Article:

"2013 - What Now ?" – Jan 6, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Text version) - New

“… New ideas are things you never thought of. These ideas will be given to you so you will have answers to the most profound questions that your societies have had since you were born. Inventions will bring clean water to every Human on the planet, cheaply and everywhere. Inventions will give you power, cheaply and everywhere. These ideas will wipe out all of the reasons you now have for pollution, and when you look back on it, you'll go, "This solution was always there. Why didn't we think of that? Why didn't we do this sooner?" Because it wasn't time and you were not ready. You hadn't planted the seeds and you were still battling the old energy, deciding whether you were going to terminate yourselves before 2012. Now you didn't…. and now you didn't.

It's funny, what you ponder about, and what your sociologists consider the "great current problems of mankind", for your new ideas will simply eliminate the very concepts of the questions just as they did in the past. Do you remember? Two hundred years ago, the predictions of sociologists said that you would run out of food, since there wasn't enough land to sustain a greater population. Then you discovered crop rotation and fertilizer. Suddenly, each plot of land could produce many times what it could before. Do you remember the predictions that you would run out of wood to heat your homes? Probably not. That was before electricity. It goes on and on.

So today's puzzles are just as quaint, as you will see. (1)How do you strengthen the power grids of your great nations so that they are not vulnerable to failure or don't require massive infrastructure improvement expenditures? Because cold is coming, and you are going to need more power. (2) What can you do about pollution? (3) What about world overpopulation? Some experts will tell you that a pandemic will be the answer; nature [Gaia] will kill off about one-third of the earth's population. The best minds of the century ponder these puzzles and tell you that you are headed for real problems. You have heard these things all your life.

Let me ask you this. (1) What if you could eliminate the power grid altogether? You can and will. (2) What if pollution-creating sources simply go away, due to new ideas and invention, and the environment starts to self-correct? (3) Overpopulation? You assume that humanity will continue to have children at an exponential rate since they are stupid and can't help themselves. This, dear ones, is a consciousness and education issue, and that is going to change. Imagine a zero growth attribute of many countries - something that will be common. Did you notice that some of your children today are actually starting to ponder if they should have any children at all? What a concept! ….”

Orange cycle tour in Colombia

RNW, 18 April 2011, by María Isabel García

(Photo: RNW/Maria Isabel Garcia)

A long column of cyclists dressed in orange made its way through the centre of Colombia’s capital Bogotá. Last Sunday, the Dutch embassy in Colombia organised a Holland day.

The Dutch ambassador, Marion Kappeyne van de Coppello, explained that the idea was to draw attention to cycling as an environmentally-friendly mode of transport. The embassy is trying to promote two issues: the environment and, in particular, water. Hundreds of posters along the cycle route proclaimed: The Dutch, experts in water management.

The ambassador pointed out that Colombia has to make changes in the field of water management. The Netherlands has a lot of experience in this area, because a large proportion of the country is below sea level. To survive, the Dutch have build dikes and other constructions to hold water. The Netherlands is keen to share its know-how with Bogotá, as at the end of last year, thousands of Colombians lost their lives in heavy flooding.

A joint Dutch-Colombian water management covenant is currently being worked on.

Motor oil leak leaves thousands without drinking water in Brazil

Antara News, Sun, February 20 2011

Rio De Janeiro, Feb 20 (ANTARA News/RIA Novosti-OANA) - About 300,000 residents of Cascavel in Brazil`s western Parana state were left without drinking water when engine oil from an overturned tank truck polluted a local river, Brazilian media said on Sunday.

More than 5 metric tons of oil products leaked to the road and then to the river via drainage systems.

The local environmental authority IAP estimated environmental damage as "significant."

Editor: Ruslan