This Year's El Nino Placing 100 Million People Worldwide At Risk From Water And Food Shortages

his year’s El Niño, which forecasters are calling one of the strongest ever, may have passed its peak strength, but changes in global weather will continue to wreak havoc on food supplies across Africa, Asia, and Latin America for months to come, according to the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Severe droughts and floods triggered by this year’s El Niño have already had a devastating effect on food security throughout the world, leaving some 100 million people with food and water shortages.

Zimbabwe has declared a state of disaster in some parts of the country as drought has decimated crop harvests. According to reports, as many as 2.4 million people, or more than a quarter of the population, are in need of food aid. Countries across southern Africa — from South Africa to Botswana — are also in the midst of drought, after suffering through the driest rainfall season in 35 years. Officials in Mozambique, which has suffered through more than two years of drought, expect that 400,000 people will be in need of food aid by March.

“The situation is critical in Mozambique,” Abdoulaye Balde, the World Food Program’s Mozambique director, told the Guardian. “We are at the point of no return. Even if it rains now it will be of limited use for growing maize. There are just a few weeks for the rains to potentially fall this year.”

According to UNICEF, an estimated one million children in eastern and southern Africa are suffering from severe acute malnutrition due to food shortages.

EDIT

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/02/18/3750740/el-nino-linked-to-food-crisis/