El Nino covers arid Atacama desert in flowers

Flowers bloom at the Huasco region on the Atacama desert, some 600 km north of Santiago, on November 27, 2015. -AFP

COPIAP, Chile: Here’s a softer side to the disruptive weather phenomenon known as El Nino: an enormous blanket of colorful flowers has carpeted Chile’s Atacama desert, the most arid in the world.

The cyclical warming of the central Pacific may be causing droughts and floods in various parts of the world, but in the vast desert of northern Chile it has also caused a vibrant explosion of thousands of species of flowers with an intensity not seen in decades.