Amazon fires: Brazil sends warplanes to dump water on devastating blaze after international outcry

[Nexy]

Brazilian warplanes have started dumping water on fires across the Amazon, as President Jair Bolsonaro’s government scrambles to contain the damage following an international outcry.

A video posted by Brazil’s Defence Ministry showed a military plane pumping thousands of litres of water as it passed through clouds of smoke close to a forest canopy in Rondonia state.

Mr Bolsonaro, the country’s far-right president, has authorised military operations in seven states. The details of most initiatives remain unclear.

Environmental groups believe the Amazon fires have been deliberately started, as people try and clear the land, and Mr Bolsonaro has been accused of tacitly encouraging the destruction.

“What he has done through his words and deeds is given the go ahead to farmers and illegal loggers, encouraging them into indigenous communities,” Richard George, head of forests at Greenpeace, previously told The Independent. Mr Bolsanaro has claimed, without evidence, that the fires could have been set by non-governmental groups who have had their funding taken away by his government.

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On Friday, after facing international pressure, Brazil’s president said he would send the army in to combat the flames. Many Brazilians took to the streets in Rio de Janeiro and other cities on Sunday to demand the administration do more. Some held banners that read: “Bol$onaro is burning our future”. 

The Defence Ministry said 44,000 troops were available in Brazil’s northern Amazon region but did not say how many would be used where and what they would do.