Court Orders Suspension of Work on Brazil Dam

A river in Brazil also runs through today’s Geo Quiz and this quiz might come in handy if you like to do crossword puzzles.

The river we want you to name is a five letter word that begins with ‘X’ and is located in northern Brazil.

It is 1200 miles long and feeds into the Amazon.

Last year engineers began constructing a massive dam on this river. It is called the Belo Monte dam. The $11 billion project has plenty of opponents including the indigenous people who would be displaced by flooding.

Some critics say it is a case of “natives versus exploiters” that is reminiscent of the film Avatar.

Xingu River is the answer to the Geo Quiz where the dam project has come to a halt.

A Brazilian court ordered the suspension of work.

If it does get completed, the Belo Monte dam would be the third biggest in the world, flooding 200 square miles of the Amazon.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to Zachary Hurwitz, who works with International Rivers, an organization that is working with indigenous groups that would be impacted by the dam.

Funding for this story was provided in part by the Fund for Environmental Journalism