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A worrying phenomenon has occurred in Bolivia. Lake Poopó, the second largest in the country, has completely dried up due to "climate change, mining pollution and the escalation of El Niño and El Niña weather systems", according to HNGN.

While the government has declared it a danger zone, critics are concerned that it is too little too late. Measure to make the region ecologically sustainable have not been taken.

It was in the Oruro Department, south of La Paz, that the saline lake was located at 12,000 feet in the Andean altiplano. Over 60 years, the lake became dry and abandoned, according to CBC News.

Now local temperatures have shot up by 0.9 degrees Celsius, explained agricultural engineer Milton Perez, employed in the Oruro Technical University. Hence, water evaporates thrice as fast between rains.

Due to changing climate, the important El Niño phenomenon, a warm phase through the Pacific Ocean, has led to heavy rains in a few parts of the world as well as drought in others once every ten years. The phenomenon has in fact increased to once in three years, according to The Globe and Mail.

This "is not sufficient for the lake to recover," Perez explained, "and it's only going to get worse."

There has been some support for the locals from some NGOs as well as their emigration, while building well systems and setting up a clay exportation business have not been enough. Many have migrated. Studies show that regional animals have died in millions.

Milton Perez and Valerio Rojas, a leader of the local indigenous Untavi community, called it last week as "a lake without life," according to the Latin American Herald Tribune. Rojas pointed out that though the lake dried up in the past, it would keep coming back to life.

However, now with advanced technology one hope for the lake's original 3,088 square mile surface area to be regenerated.