São Paulo turned dark due to smoke from fires in the Amazon rainforest

Aug 21 2019, 1:19 am

The afternoon skies over São Paulo turned black on Monday afternoon due to the smoke from wildfires burning in the Amazon rainforest burning nearly 3,000 km away.

According to BBC, the smoke from the wildfires caused an hour-long blackout in São Paulo on Monday.

The forest fires burning in the states of Amazonas and Rondonia are so large they can be seen from space. BBC reports that the number of forest fires in Brazil saw an 83% increase since the same period last year.

Brazil fires/ NASA Earth Observatory

Environmentalists are reportedly placing much of the blame for the fires on Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, who has encouraged deforestation of the world’s largest rainforest.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) also produced a time-lapse the smoke, which is moving toward the Atlantic coast.

Concerns over the state of the Amazon rainforest was expressed globally on social media on Monday, as the #PrayforAmazonia hashtag began trending on Twitter to raise awareness about the fires and deforestation.

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