Amazon How scary is the river?
The scary thing about the Amazon River is that it is located in the Amazon rainforest. The rainforest environment is not suitable for human survival. Only local indigenous people can survive here for a long time. It is difficult for outsiders to adapt here. It can even be described as "survival".
This is because there are thousands of species of animals and plants lurking in the rainforest, and these animals and plants have the ability to hurt or even kill people.
There once was a wild survival program that invited wild survival masters to come here to survive for 7 days. As a result, one of the teammates announced his surrender and quit the program the next day. The reason was that the environment in the rainforest was so harsh that mosquitoes even swarmed at night. Can eat people alive.
What you need to know is that some mosquitoes in the tropics carry infectious diseases, such as: malaria, dengue fever, etc. Without modern medicine, the mortality rate will be very high based on human resistance alone.
In addition, there are also ferocious beasts living in the Amazon river, such as: jaguar. They are good at ambushing and committing crimes. Once they find their prey, they will launch a fatal attack.
- The king of swamps, the "Anaconda", also lives here. Although they have no sharp teeth or claws, their powerful muscles are enough to strangle an adult. Once anacondas over 3 meters in size entangle a person's body, they will be killed by just one Human power is difficult to unravel.
- Not to mention the frightening piranhas living here. Legend has it that a cow went into the water to cross the river, but as soon as it got out of the river, it was devoured by the piranhas in the water until only its skeleton was left. Of course, this rumor is actually a bit exaggerated. Piranhas are not as scary as the legend says.
- For men, the " toothpick fish" living in the Amazon river can be described as a nightmare. The toothpick fish likes to parasitize on the gills of fish. They are small and transparent. When swimming naked in the water, they may Follow the smell to the male reproductive organ, and then get into it, which is painful.
What’s even more desperate is that the environment here may cause death. The Amazon River has a tropical rainforest climate with high temperatures and humidity, and animal and plant remains decompose quickly, which can form miasma. If you accidentally break into the depths of the forest, you may suffer from miasma poisoning.
Why no bridge dares to cross the Amazon River?
The Amazon River is a river with more than 15,000 tributaries, with an average annual net flow of 6.93 trillion cubic meters, ranking first in the world. The average annual runoff of the Yangtze River is only 960 billion cubic meters, only about 1/6 of the Amazon River.
The Amazon River seems ordinary, but it contains hidden risks. Even today, no bridge dares to cross it. The reasons are multifaceted, including both human factors and natural factors.
- Frequent diversions
The Amazon River has a tropical rainforest climate, with high temperatures and rain all year round, with annual precipitation exceeding 2,000 mm. On the other hand, the Amazon Basin is a low-lying land, and the Amazon River carries a large amount of sediment as it flows upstream.
After the river flows into a flat area, the river flow slows down and sediment settles, which can easily cause the Amazon River to change its course.
The local indigenous people even gave up building sturdier houses because of its frequent diversions, and instead built "stilt buildings", that is, using wooden piles to erect a house out of thin air, with debris on the first floor and people and people on the second floor. Life.
In this way, even if the river floods, it will not affect the lives of people on the second floor. After the river recedes, they can return to the first floor.
In fact, my country's Yellow River also frequently changed its course in ancient times. However, the Yellow River is located north of my country's 800 mm precipitation line, with less precipitation throughout the year, and its change of course is infrequent. The Amazon river is very easy to change its course. Maybe this year the village is still 2 kilometers away from the river, but next year the village will be located in the middle of the river.
A river that changes its course frequently makes it impossible to build a bridge. After all, bridges are used by people, and a river that changes its course frequently will make the bridges built with huge sums of money useless. Just like the bridge in Honduras , the bridge will still be there after the hurricane, and the river Ran.
Of course, there are disadvantages and advantages to river diversion. Local indigenous people will use the river silt to grow crops. These soils are rich in organic matter, which act as natural fertilizers and increase food production. The local economy is backward, and these soils are precious wealth to the indigenous people.
- The river channel becomes wider
Looking at the large and small rivers in my country, the width of the river channel is relatively fixed, so when building a bridge, we can estimate the length of the bridge.
But the Amazon river is wild and untamed. It not only changes its course frequently, but also widens. Last year it was only 10 meters long, but this year with more water flowing upstream, it may become 40 meters long.
This means that the bridge must be prepared at least several times in advance, which means that it needs to occupy more land and destroy more rainforest environment. It can be said that the gain outweighs the loss.
Another important reason is that the local soil layer is soft and the local rainfall is heavy. The exposed soil can easily be washed away by heavy rainfall and floods, causing the risk of bridge collapse, so building bridges here is not a common problem. An easy thing.
- Economic backwardness
As long as there is a need, there is a solution. The difficulties of building a bridge over the Amazon River are not difficult for our country's infrastructure fanatics.
After all, our country has built roads in the desert, built viaducts in the mountains, and built a 36-kilometer cross-sea bridge on the ocean. Each of the difficulties is as high as the sky, but our country has still done it.
The real reason that prevents the construction of bridges over the Amazon River is that the local economic conditions are backward, and building bridges requires a lot of funds.
Amazon built a bridge over the Negro River , a tributary of the bridge. The bridge cost a total of US$620 million, twice as much as the budget, and was frantically attacked by the media. Building a bridge across the Amazon River is not cheap.
Moreover, in the tropical rainforest along the Amazon River, there are sparsely populated areas and less economic activities, so the utilization rate of building bridges is low. Building bridges here is a business destined to lose money.
More importantly, the local rivers extend in all directions and shipping is very convenient. People can rely on boats to travel instead of having to transport through bridges.
