Amazona apocalypse: These pictures show how a river disappears

Since the beginning of the records in 1902, the Amazon and its tributaries have never recorded such a low level. In the port of Manaus in Brazil, where the dark water of the Rio Negro flows into the bright Amazona, the level is usually 21 meters at that time. At the beginning of October 2024, only twelve meters were measured. The record -breaking drought, which has been going on for the second year, is not just a disaster for nature, plants, the animals, the entire rainforest. It also has dramatic effects on hundreds of local communities whose life takes place on the Amazon – usually.

In order to document these episodes for people, photographer Musuk Nolte made his way to the Amazon community of Manacapuru, around an hour and a half boat trip from Manaus. For the locals who live here on the banks of the Rio Solimões, the upper reaches of the Amazon, the current is vital – for the transport of food, fresh drinking water, indeed for any kind of trade.

“It is a completely wrong world: fishermen and traders walk over the reason for a river that they normally drive on,” photographer Nolte, 37, brings the absurdness of the situation to the point. “Sometimes I felt like capturing an apocalyptic moment with my camera.”