Asunción, IP Agency.- The hydrometer of the Paraguay River in the port of Asunción woke up this Monday with 7 centimeters less than yesterday, reaching a record of -1.24 meters. This marks a new historical record for downspout in 120 years of measurement.
“Since we have read we have never had a level like this,” said the head of the Dredging Department of the National Navigation and Ports Administration, engineer Benjamín Martínez.
He indicated that since 2021 there has been a situation of water shortage from which the river has not recovered and that the current drought has caused it to reach these historical levels “that not even the most pessimistic would have imagined.”
This situation means that the section of the Paraguay River between Concepción and Asunción can no longer be navigated for international trade.
However, from Asunción to the port of Pilar, which is the section where Paraguayan foreign trade mainly moves, you can still navigate, thanks to the dredging work of the ANNP, although reducing the loading capacity of the containers to 70%. .
«From Asunción down the dredging work bore fruit; We have gone deeper and that allows it to still be navigated,” said the head of Dragado.
«The most critical area for navigation is from Concepción to the Remanso bridge near Asunción, where international trade is no longer navigated. There we are working on removing the rocky bottom, cutting stone points in the Puente Remanso area; but above Concepción there are stone slabs that require longer-term interventions,” he said.
According to forecasts, we would only have an improvement in the flow of the Paraguay River in the month of December, so it becomes necessary to continue working on palliative measures such as dredging to make navigation possible.
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2024-10-02 19:13:54