Fire hazard: Children struggle to breathe as smoke chokes Amazon city

(Reuters News, 2 Sep 2019) At Porto Velho health centres, lines of concerned parents waiting to get treatment for their children have lengthened as Amazon fires have escalated.

When Maria Augusta Almeida, 45, heard her grandson cough incessantly, she knew what was to blame: the fires raging in the Amazon forest, some of them more than 200 miles (322 km) away from Porto Velho.

The smoke permeating the city, the capital of Brazil's northwestern state of Rondonia, is leading concerned parents to wait for hours in line at local hospitals to get help for their children who are struggling to breathe.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation visited four health centres in the city, one of the hardest hit by smoke from the burning rainforest. In all, there were reports of children, some of them infants, seeking medical care due to smoke inhalation.

Last month, Brazil's space research agency, INPE, revealed the number of fires in the Amazon was the highest since 2010.

That sparked international calls for the country to do more to protect the world's largest tropical rainforest - key to curbing climate change - from deforestation and other threats.

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Reuters News, 2 Sep 2019: Fire hazard: Children struggle to breathe as smoke chokes Amazon city