Colombia Environmental Alert: Amazon forest fires that have been burning for days in Colombia.
Bogota:
Authorities stated that forest fires in Colombia’s Amazon raged for days on Saturday. Bogota, the Andean capital, was placed on an environmental alert because of poor air quality.
Wind carried smoke from several burning fires 350 km (220 mi) to the northwest, all way to the Colombian capital.
Claudia Lopez, Bogota Mayor said via Twitter that more than half the capital’s air quality monitoring station have been out of compliance for the past 48 hours.
She wrote that the city issued an environmental alert as an environmental protection measure.
Lopez advised her eight million residents of the city to avoid outdoor activities in the coming days.
Authorities blame the fires upon ex-rebels who rejected the 2016 peace deal with government. They claimed that they were burning trees to raise cattle.
Governor Haydeer Palacio in Guaviare declared a “red alert,” due to forest fires engulfing 10,000 hectares of land. This is an area roughly equal to the area of Paris.
January this year was the hottest in the Colombian Amazon for a decade. It also led to an increase of forest fires in the southeastern area and could have an impact on the capital’s air quality, according to Friday’s Environment Ministry report.
(This story was not edited by NDTV staff. It is generated automatically from a syndicated feed.
