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visible for years. It has a higher rate of evaporation than the Sahara or
Gobi deserts. Rain has never fallen on large parts of it in recorded
history.
"For the past two years, weather typical of the Atacama Desert has been
moving southward across Chile's bread basket-the rich, irrigated Central
Valley which raises most of the country's food and where two-thirds of its
9.2 million citizens live.
"The resulting drought, according to President Ehwd~ Frei in a recent
speech, 'is perhaps the maJor natural catastrophe which the country has
suffered in its economic history.'
"Records preserved by the meteorological service of the Chilean Air Force
show that 1968 was the driest of any of the last 119 years. Rainfall
deficiet ranged from 100 percent across the northern edge of the drought
zone to 52 percent at its southern extreme 300 miles south of this capital
city. In Santiago Province, whose 550,000 irrigated acres make it Chile's
leading agricultural province, rainfall was 2.75 inches last year--81 percent
below normal.
"To make matters worse, winter snowfall in the mountains, which ordinarily
replenishes lakes and reservoirs as it melts in the spring, has been
equally scarce.
"Andean peaks a few miles east of here (Santiago), perpetually snow covered
to a depth of 10 feet in normal times, are now naked and brown. Even the
'eternal snows1 of the Western Hemisphere's highest sumit, Mt. Aconcagua,
near the Argentine frontier, are disappearing under the arid onslaught.
"As yet the drought has cost no human lives, but it has provoked the death
of animals and human hunger and caused problems ranging from minor inconveniences
to major hardships for every sector of the national life.
"There are an estimated 120,000 persons who receive all or part of their
food through a government relief program."
Some of the consequences of the drought besides the food shortage were:
thousands of dead cattle and sheep; loss of animal weight; reduced agricultural
productions; reduced or vanished incoine for thousands of farmers
and farm workers;lower demands for consumer and industrial goods; and
expense to the country for drought relief and for foreign exchange to buy
imports needed to make up for internal shortages.
?he water shortage caused a drop in the generation of electricity. When
finally the Las Ventanas themelectric power plant failed, it became necessary
to ration electricity in the whole central valley both for private
homes and industry. Because of this, Chile's largest copper. mines produced
30,000 less tons than the previous year, which meant a loss of more than
$32 million in foreign exchange. Copper is Chile's main export. Unewloyment
skyrocketed in the seasonal farm labor force. It also threatened