NewsTracker Answers for week of Mar. 30, 2015

Q: While years of drought in southern Chile led to wildfires threatening 1,000-year-old trees, flash floods in the north last week swept through a desert commonly known as the driest place in the world. Where is Chile?

Circle the area on this map


Q: Instead of falling as snow in the mountains of northern Chile, warmer temperatures turned precipitation into rain that flooded towns in the Atacama Desert. What is the name of the mountain range that runs through Chile?  

A. Alps

B. Andes

C. Appalachians

D. Atlas


B. Running about 4,300 miles along the western edge of South America, the Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. The Atacama Desert lies on a 600-mile western plateau of the Andes, and it may be the oldest desert on earth - at least 3 million years old. It averages an annual rainfall of a about a half-inch but some weather stations in the Atacama have never received rain.


Q: The rains also caused flooding and mudslides in Chile's northern neighbor . . .

A. Argentina

B. Brazil

C. Peru

D. Venezuela


C.  Chile borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far south. The nation also claims 480,000 square miles of Antarctica, the world's largest desert. The Atacama Desert lies just south of the border between Chile and Peru.


Q: Chilean officials hoped the fall rains will reach far enough south to put out wildfires burning thousands of acres of a species of pine trees which can live up to a thousand years. Fire brigades fought the fires about 440 miles south of Chile's capital . . .

A. Buenos Aires 

B. Lima

C. Santa Cruz

D. Santiago


D. With more than 5 million people in the metropolitan area, Santiago also is Chile's largest city. Government officials in Santiago fear the nation's drought, which began in 2007, is the result of climate change and could signal long-term changes with precipitation decreasing 40 to 50 percent by mid-century.


Q: Chile's government is spending $170 million this year to improve water supplies and continue building desalination plants. Chile is South America's . . .

A. Richest nation

B. Poorest nation


A.  Chile leads Latin American nations in rankings of human development, competitiveness, income per capita, globalization, state of peace, economic freedom, and low perception of corruption.