The Atacama Desert in Chile is one of the driest places on Earth. Very few bacteria, algae, fungi and lichen are able to survive here, in the soil crusts or as part of the soil microbiota. When the first rainstorms for decades made their way across this region in 2017 – a consequence of climate change – it seemed that the born survivors which inhabit this area would finally be granted a well-deserved embarrassment of liquid riches. In fact, the episode culminated in a microbial massacre as the unpredcedented excess of water caused the organisms to burst. Of the microbes which normally occur in and on top of the soil in Atacama, only a handful of species survived.