VENEZUELA:
Lightning in the Sky Fed
by Underground Methane
By Humberto Márquez*
CONGO MIRADOR,
Venezuela, (IPS/IFEJ)
- A red, yellow and
orange flash illuminates
a slice of the sky and
Lake Maracaibo in
Venezuela. For a
fraction of a second
after, lightning of
incandescent white move
left to right and right
to left between small
clouds like dark
silhouettes.
Seconds later the
phenomenon repeats, with
different tones and
intensity and new shapes
of neighbouring clouds,
lasting for hours, with
a distant and muted
rumour of thunder, until
the charged convective
clouds cease their
pyrotechnic game and
turn into a regular
storm. It rains -- a
deluge that lasts six
hours.
The lightning of the
Catatumbo -- over the
delta of the river of
the same name, which
begins in north-eastern
Colombia and flows among
marshes and lagoons into
Lake Maracaibo, in
western Venezuela -- is
a cloud-to-cloud
electrical storm, linked
to a permanent low
pressure in the area,
rich in methane that is
set alight and glows.
"This is the place in
the world with highest
average time with
electrical storms per
year," says Venezuelan
environmentalist Eric
Quiroga, promoter of
Sep. 16 as International
Day for Preservation of
the Ozone Layer.
The Catatumbo has
lightning 140 to 160
nights per year, lasting
about seven hours, in
two cycles just before
and after midnight, for
about 980 hours
annually, with an
average of 28 strikes
per minute, for a grand
total of 1,646,000 per
year, according to
Quiroga.
The sites with greatest
occurrence of electrical
storms in the world are
El Bagre, in Antioquia,
Colombia (270 days per
year); Tororo, Uganda
(251 days), and Bogor,
in Java, Indonesia (223
days). In Tororo and El
Bagre, the lightning
lasts about two hours,
usually occurs during
the day, and between
clouds and land.
The cloud-land
electrical charges have
an intensity of 10,000
to 50,000 amperes, while
cloud-cloud charges are
between 100,000 and
300,000 amperes. "Each
bolt could light all the
bulbs of South America.
An average of 1.6
million strikes per year
and an average intensity
of 150,000 amperes make
the Catatumbo the
leading source in its
type of electrical
generator on the
planet," Quiroga said in
an interview for this
report.
It is the glow that one
sees as night falls,
watching from the
fishing boats, from
Puerto Concha to Ologá
and Congo Mirador,
villages built on stilts
on the south side of the
lake, which at moments
becomes a mirror of
light.
Where does the methane
come from that feeds the
flashes? For years, the
predominant thesis was
that it emanated from
decomposing organic
material nourished by
the torrential rains in
the southern lake
watershed, some 600 km
southwest of Caracas,
where winds from the
northeast and southwest
collide.
But researcher Angel
Muñoz, of the regional
University of Zulia,
suggests that there is
kerogen (a mixture of
organic compounds found
in sedimentary rocks) in
the subsoil of the
lagoons of dark waters
between the neighbouring
Bravo and Catatumbo
rivers.
"The substrata of the
lake are rich in
petroleum deposits and
share with the river
marshes the same
geological history. The
accumulation of methane
in the atmosphere could
be favored by leaks of
this gas through
fissures in the rocky
mantle and into the
marshes and lagoons,"
says Muñoz.
That would explain the
mysterious disappearance
of the lightning or the
increase in its
frequency and intensity
after earthquakes in the
area.
The lightning "appears
above La Estrella lagoon
and its dark waters, a
little to the west of
here. That is where I
have best seen it on
summer nights with clear
skies," says the oldest
resident of Congo
Mirador, José del Carmen
Guerrero, a 79-year-old
fisherman and community
activist.
His wife, María Díaz,
65, recalls that "when I
was young, the lightning
was bigger and stronger.
In my opinion it has
diminished."
Quiroga says that
"perhaps the methane
emissions have varied,"
and the intensity over
the lagoons is explained
because "those waters
absorb more energy, and
the south of the lake is
one of the sites with
most solar radiation in
the world: by day, the
light dissolves the
methane, but at night,
on currents of warm air,
it rises quickly to the
high clouds."
While water vapor goes
to the lower clouds to
create rain, the methane
ascends up to seven or
eight kilometres in the
sky, and when the ice
particles in the
enormous convective
clouds are ionized it
produces electrical
discharges sometimes
seen as far away as 400
km, from the islands of
the southern Caribbean.
"I am very proud. The
lightning produces
ozone, and the ozone
protects life on all the
planet," says fisherman
Alexis Vega, 49,
standing on the narrow
strip of sand between
Lake Maracaibo and Ologá
lagoon, after listing
the things the town
lacks. Half of the
houses, made of metal
sheeting, are on the
coast, half are built on
stilts.
Quiroga picks up again
on the explanations: "At
more than six kilometres
high, the lightning is a
generating source of
ozone. It could be that
the Catatumbo is the
leading source of its
type in the world,"
although the electrical
storms produce just 10
percent of the ozone in
the stratosphere that
protects Earth from the
Sun's harmful rays.
The lightning is also
shown proudly on the
shield and the flag of
the oil-rich state of
Zulia, in spite of the
misery of the "water
villages", some 800
residents in Congo
Mirador, 200 in Ologá,
and dozens more spread
in other settlements.
The inhabitants present
a list of complaints
because there are
shortages of
electricity, potable
water, fuel, food,
medical care, education
and other services and
opportunities. Some see
it as governmental
disdain.
In late October and
early November, about 20
young artists,
participants in a course
of the Caracas Museum of
Contemporary Art, faced
the inclement weather
seeking compensation
with the orange, yellow
and white light show.
Meanwhile, the Wayúu
Indians, who watch the
lightning from the north
side of the
12,000-square-km lake,
see in it the spirits of
their dead loved ones,
whose souls glow in the
clouds.
For the indigenous Barí,
on the southwest side of
the lake, and whose
language gave rise to
the names Catatumbo and
Zulia, the lightning is
a concentration of
millions of fireflies
who gather at night to
pay tribute to the
creators.
(*This story is part of
a series of features on
sustainable development
by IPS-Inter Press
Service and IFEJ-International
Federation of
Environmental
Journalists.)
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