Catatumbo: Venezuela's vanishing lightning

Darkness never lasted long in the skies over Lake Maracaibo. An hour after dusk the show would begin: a lightning bolt, then another, and another, until the whole horizon flashed white Photograph: Vladimir Marcano Photograph: guardian.co.uk The electrical storms, a product of a unique meteorological phenomenon, have lit up nights in this corner of Venezuela for thousands of years Photograph: Vladimir Marcano Photograph: guardian.co.uk The spectacle, one of the longest single displays of continuous lightning in the world, lasts up to nine hours a night. On average it is visible over 160 nights a year from 250 miles away. Lightning bolts discharged from cloud to cloud strike 16 to 40 times a minute. They can reach an intensity of 400,000 amps but are so high thunder is inaudible Photograph: Vladimir Marcano Photograph: guardian.co.uk But the phenomenon, which once unleashed up to 20,000 bolts a night, stopped in late January. Not a single bolt has been seen since Photograph: Vladimir Marcano Photograph: guardian.co.uk Residents in the village of Congo Mirador, a collection of wooden huts on stilts at the phenomenon’s epicentre, are puzzled and anxious about its absence Photograph: Vladimir Marcano Photograph: guardian.co.uk Fishermen used the lightning to guide them at night Photograph: Vladimir Marcano Photograph: guardian.co.uk It has been five weeks and there is no sign of nocturnal flashes Photograph: Vladimir Marcano Photograph: guardian.co.uk Catatumbo appears to be a casualty of the El Niño weather phenomenon which has disrupted global weather patterns and caused a severe drought in Venezuela. Rain has all but disappeared, drying up rivers and lowering lakes Photograph: Vladimir Marcano Photograph: guardian.co.uk The drought has also extinguished man-made lights across Venezuela because the country relies largely on hydropower. Last month President Hugo Chavez declared an electricity emergency Photograph: Vladimir Marcano Photograph: guardian.co.uk Children play in the waters of Lake Maracaibo at Congo Mirador. Venezuelan authorities have been lobbied to protect the area and the United Nations to recognise it as a world heritage site Photograph: Vladimir Marcano Photograph: guardian.co.uk A Unesco spokeswoman said there were no plans to do so because electrical storms did not have a “site” Photograph: Vladimir Marcano Photograph: guardian.co.uk