A sea of flowers blooms in Chile's Atacama Desert due to rare rainfall caused by the El Niño phenomenon

Affected by the El Niño phenomenon, Chile experienced rare heavy rains. The Atacama Desert in Chile, the driest desert in the world, has now bloomed into a sea of ​​gorgeous flowers and turned into a flower field.

According to the "AFP" report, due to the influence of the El Niño climate pattern, northern Chile suffered heavy rainfall, prompting these sleeping creatures to emerge from the ground in the Atacama Desert.

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The report pointed out that in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest areas in the world, under the normally dry and cracked soil, there are about 200 different species of plants and millions of seeds and bulbs, dormant for a long time, quietly waiting for moisture to arrive. Moistened by heavy rain, flowers poked their heads out of the cracked earth, and large swaths of purple flowers covered the desert like a carpet, turning the originally dead desert into a gorgeous flower field.

Cesar Pizarro, director of Atacama's biodiversity at Chile's National Forest Service (CONAF), pointed out that seasonal rainfall in some areas exceeded 180 millimeters, and such rainfall "has never been recorded in the past."

Pizarro said that "not just flowers" are now appearing in the Atacama Desert, but the number of insects, snails, birds, reptiles and mammals has also increased. "Although there are several deserts in the world that bloom after rainfall, the breadth of the flowering area and the diversity of species here are unique."

According to the Chilean National Forestry Service, the "flowering desert" phenomenon will reach its peak in October, when it is estimated that about 15,000 hectares of land will be transformed into a flower paradise. The last desert bloom occurred in 2024, and the previous update now dates back to 2015.