Tag Archives: Drought

Four countries face famine threat as global food crisis deepens

Internally displaced Somali children eat boiled rice outside their family's makeshift shelter at the Al-cadaala camp in Somalia's capital Mogadishu March 6, 2017. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

LONDON (Reuters) – Global food crises worsened significantly in 2016 and conditions look set to deteriorate further this year in some areas with an increasing risk of famine, a report said on Friday.

“There is a high risk of famine in some areas of north-eastern Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen because of armed conflict, drought and macro-economic collapse,” the Food Security Information Network (FSIN) said.

FSIN, which is co-sponsored by the United Nations food agency, the World Food Programme and the International Food Policy Research Institute, said the demand for humanitarian assistance was escalating.

FSIN said that 108 million people were reported to be facing crisis level food insecurity or worse in 2016, a drastic increase from the previous year’s total of almost 80 million.

The network uses a five phase scale with the third level classified as crisis, fourth as emergency and fifth as famine/catastrophe.

“In 2017, widespread food insecurity is likely to persist in Iraq, Syria (including among refugees in neighboring countries), Malawi and Zimbabwe,” the report said.

(Reporting by Nigel Hunt; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

In drought-stricken Somaliland, families try to survive on black tea

A displaced woman, Nima Mohamed, 35, poses with 6 of her 7 children beside their shelter at a makeshift settlement area near Burao, northwestern Togdheer region of Somaliland March 25, 2017. Picture taken March 25, 2017. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

By George Obulutsa and Abdirahman Hussein

BURAO, Somalia (Reuters) – In a makeshift camp beside a disused airfield in the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland, 32-year old Nima Mohamed sits next to an open wood fire, boiling a kettle of black tea.

Unless aid groups bring them food and water, the tea is the only meal of the day for her three sons and three daughters who lie nearby in a home made of old bed sheets.

Mohamed is one of the two million people in the breakaway Horn of Africa republic — about half its population — facing starvation after an acute drought killed their livestock.

“We have lost all our animals,” she told Reuters.

Before their goats died from lack of pasture and water, they provided milk for the children to drink and butter which was used to cook rice for the family to eat, she said.

About 100 or so other families were camped out next to Mohamed’s hut in similar structures made of sticks, plastic sacks, moth-eaten canvas and cardboard.

They settled outside the airfield after migrating from various drought-stricken parts of Somaliland, especially in the eastern part of the territory.

According to the government, 70 percent of Somaliland’s economy relies on livestock.

The carcasses of goats, sheep and camels strewn around Burao and the vast, dusty scrubland surrounding the small city, are stark reminders of the extent of the hardship.

Beyond Somaliland, other regions in Somalia are also facing a devastating drought that has decimated harvests and is threatening to tip into full-blown famine only six years after a similar humanitarian catastrophe in which 260,000 people died.

In other parts of Somalia, the shortages are worsened by fighting in areas occupied by al Shabaab Islamist militants.

The Somaliland government in the regional capital Hargeisa said the drought had also led to an increase in diseases such as diarrhea and malnutrition, especially among children and the elderly.

At another makeshift camp housing 500 people in Bardihahle, 100 km (62 miles)from Burao, pregnant Amina Haji, 23, who fled from Wardad in the eastern Sanaag region, one of the heaviest hit by drought, sat in her small hut in sweltering heat.

Haji, whose baby is due any day, fretted about the conditions in the camp with its lack of food, water and healthcare.

“We do not have any kind of help and I live under this makeshift shelter,” she said. “Nothing remains for us.”

(Editing by Duncan Miriri and Ed Cropley/Jeremy Gaunt)

Hunger kills at least 26 in Somalia’s Jubbaland region

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – At least 26 people died from hunger in the semi-autonomous Jubbaland region of southern Somalia in just a day an a half, federal government radio said on its website.

Somalia, like other countries in the region, is facing a devastating drought that has killed livestock, cut harvests and left 6.2 million people, about half its population, in need of food aid.

The acute hunger gripping Jubbaland caused an exodus of hundreds of families into the capital Mogadishu seeking help.

The website quoted Mohamed Hussein, the Jubbaland assistant minister of interior, as saying severe drought had killed the people over a span of 36 hours to Monday, all in various towns in middle Jubba and Gedo areas.

“The people in those areas need emergency assistance,” Hussein said in the report.

Residents said most of the affected towns were controlled by al Shabaab militants, who have been waging a violent campaign to topple the Western-backed federal government in Mogadishu.

Among a group of nine families arriving in the capital from Jubbaland on Tuesday was Ibrahim Abdow, 62, who said he rode on a donkey and a bus to get there.

“Our cows and farms have perished. The rivers have dried and there are no wells there,” he told Reuters, while camping under a tree on the outskirts of Mogadishu.

Residents of the city supplied the families with bread and bowls of water but they said relief food from aid agencies was needed urgently.

Rich countries must do more to stop Somalia from sinking into famine, the head of the United Nations said this month, warning terrorism would increase without aid. It is asking for $825 million in aid.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Nick Macfie)

California’s desert blooms as drought comes to an end

A massive spring wildflower bloom caused by a wet winter is seen in Lake Elsinore, California, U.S., March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

LAKE ELSINORE, California (Reuters) – Southern California’s deserts and hillsides are ablaze with color after a wet winter spurred what scientists say is the biggest wildflower bloom in years.

Golden California poppies, the state’s flower, blanket hillsides along busy high-desert roads and freeways around Lake Elsinore in Riverside County. At Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in San Diego County, the desert blooms with purple Canterbury Bells, red Monkey Flower, white Desert Lily and more poppies.

“Plentiful rains in December, January and February have encouraged the development of a spectacular showing of annual plants in the flower fields north of town, along trails in western canyons, and even in the badlands,” naturalists wrote on Anza-Borrego’s website.

Before the state’s devastating five-year drought, Southern California families often made an annual trek to see wildflowers at Anza-Borrego and other destinations – some as close as a freeway exit in the high desert. Now that storms have replenished dry desert land, the tradition has returned in force.

So many people are visiting Anza-Borrego, the state’s largest park, that officials on Tuesday warned of traffic jams and urged flower-lovers to bring plenty of water to avoid dehydration in the hot, dry weather expected this week.

On the steep hillsides of Walker Canyon in Lake Elsinore, people snapped pictures of wildflowers and gathered blooms as they strolled through the gently waving sea of color. Children played and dogs romped through the high stands of poppies as traffic whizzed by on the freeway below.

(Reporting by Alan Devall in Lake Elsinore, California and Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Writing by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Wildfire threat remains after killing six, destroying numerous structures

(Reuters) – The threat of wildfires is expected to remain high on Wednesday in the U.S. Plains, where prairie fires have claimed six lives, prompted thousands of evacuations and destroyed numerous structures.

Fire weather advisories remained in effect in parts of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas where firefighters continued to battle wildfires stoked by high winds and tinder-dry vegetation over the last several days.

Low humidity along with 15 to 25 mph (25 to 40 kph) winds and ongoing drought conditions will continue to create elevated fire dangers throughout the region, the National Weather Service said in its advisories that also included Missouri and Nebraska.

Cooler temperatures, diminishing winds and a chance of rain were in the forecast for parts of the region over the weekend, but the weather service warned that the threat of wildfires remained in effect.

“Winds will be considerably lighter through the middle to latter part of the week. This will result in less threatening fire weather conditions. However, a limited to elevated risk will continue, given the dry conditions,” the service said.

The fires killed four people, including three ranch hands racing to herd livestock to safety, in the Texas Panhandle. One motorist died in Kansas on Monday from smoke inhalation, authorities said.

A woman in Oklahoma suffered a heart attack while trying to move cattle from harm’s way and died, NBC News reported. Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin declared an emergency in 22 counties hit by wildfires.

The Perryton fire blackened more than 300,000 acres (121,000 hectares) and destroyed two homes in the Texas Panhandle and was 50 percent contained, authorities said.

Wildfires in northwestern Oklahoma prompted evacuations of multiple towns, according to state officials, who said more than 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) have burned.

At least 10,000 residents in central Kansas were asked to evacuate their homes due to a wildfire in Reno County, where about 230 responders were on the scene, the county’s emergency management agency said.

More than 650,000 acres (263,000 hectares) also have burned in Kansas, according to the state’s emergency management agency.

Firefighters battling a 30,000-acre (12,000-hectare) grassland fire in northeastern Colorado extended containment lines to 80 percent of the blaze’s perimeter on Tuesday. Five homes were lost in the flames, a spokeswoman for Phillips County official said.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Somalia says 110 dead in last 48 hours due to drought

By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Some 110 people have died in southern Somalia in the last two days from famine and diarrhea resulting from a drought, the prime minister said on Saturday, as the area braces itself for widespread shortages of food.

In February, United Nations children’s agency UNICEF said the drought in Somalia could lead to up to 270,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition this year.

“It is a difficult situation for the pastoralists and their livestock. Some people have been hit by famine and diarrhea at the same time. In the last 48 hours 110 people died due to famine and diarrhea in Bay region,” Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire’s office said in a statement.

“The Somali government will do its best, and we urge all Somalis wherever they are to help and save the dying Somalis,” he said in the statement released after a meeting of a famine response committee.

In 2011, some 260,000 people starved to death due to famine in Somalia.

The country also continues to be rocked by security problems, with the capital Mogadishu and other regions controlled by the federal government coming under regular attack from al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Brazil races against time to save drought-hit city, dying crops

cracked ground in Brazil

By Anthony Boadle

CAMPINA GRANDE, Brazil (Reuters) – The shrunken carcasses of cows lie in scorched fields outside the city of Campina Grande in northeast Brazil, and hungry goats search for food on the cracked-earth floor of the Boqueirao reservoir that serves the desperate town.

After five years of drought, farmer Edivaldo Brito says he cannot remember when the Boqueirão reservoir was last full. But he has never seen it this empty.

“We’ve lost everything: bananas, beans, potatoes,” Brito said. “We have to walk 3 kilometers just to wash clothes.”

Brazil’s arid northeast is weathering its worst drought on record and Campina Grande, which has 400,000 residents that depend on the reservoir, is running out of water.

After two years of rationing, residents complain that water from the reservoir is dirty, smelly and undrinkable. Those who can afford to do so buy bottled water to cook, wash their teeth with, and even to give their pets.

The reservoir is down to 4 percent of capacity and rainfall is expected to be sparse this year.

“If it does not fill up, the city’s water system will collapse by mid-year,” says Janiro Costa Rêgo, an expert on water resources and hydraulics professor at Campina Grande’s federal university. “It would be a holocaust. You would have to evacuate the city.”

Brazil’s government says help is on the way.

REROUTING THE RIVER

After decades of promises and years of delays, the government says the rerouting of Brazil’s longest river, the São Francisco, will soon relieve Campina Grande and desperate farmers in four parched northeastern states.

Water will be pumped over hills and through 400 kilometers of canals into dry river basins in Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco, and Paraíba, the small state of which Campina Grande is the second-biggest city.

Begun in 2005 by leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the project has been delayed by political squabbles, corruption and cost-overruns of billions of dollars.

Brazil’s ongoing recession, which economists calculate has shrunk the economy of the impoverished northeast by over four percent during each of the past two years, made things even worse.

Now, President Michel Temer is speeding up completion of the project, perhaps his best opportunity to boost support for his unpopular government in a region long-dominated by native-son Lula and his leftist Workers Party.

In early March, Temer plans to open a canal that will feed Campina Grande’s reservoir at the town of Monteiro. The water will still take weeks to flow down the dry bed of the Paraíba river to Boqueirão.

With the quality of water in Campina Grande dropping by the day, it is a race against time.

Professor Costa Rêgo says the reservoir water will become untreatable by March and could harm residents who cannot afford bottled water.

Helder Barbalho, Temer’s minister in charge of the project, says the government is confident the water will arrive on schedule.

“We have to deliver the water by April at all costs,” he said.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change has worsened the droughts in Brazil’s northeast over the last 30 years, according to Eduardo Martins, head of Funceme, Ceará state’s meteorological agency.

Rainfall has decreased and temperatures have risen, increasing demand for agricultural irrigation just as water supplies fell and evaporation accelerated.

Costa Rêgo blames lack of planning by Brazil’s governments for persistent and repeated water crises, shocking for a country that boasts the biggest fresh water reserves on the planet.

The reservoir supplying São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and a metropolitan region of 20 million people, nearly dried up in 2015. The capital, Brasilia, resorted to rationing this year.

In Fortaleza, capital of Ceará and the northeast’s second largest city, the vital Castanhão reservoir is down to 5 percent of its capacity.

While that city will also get water from the São Francisco project, it will not arrive until at least year-end because contractor Mendes Junior abandoned work after being implicated in a major corruption scandal.

“Water from the São Francisco river is vital,” Ceará Governor Camilo Santana told Reuters. He said the reservoir can supply Ceará only until August.

After that, the state must use emergency wells and a mandatory 20 percent reduction in consumption to keep Fortaleza taps running until water arrives.

RATIONING

Ceará has had to cut back on irrigation, hurting flower and melon exporters, cattle ranchers and dairy farmers. They stand to flourish when the transfer comes through, but quenching the thirst of the cities will take priority.

In Campina Grande, a textile center, companies including industry leaders Coteminas and Alpargatas have curtailed expansion plans and drastically cut back consumption by recycling the water they use.

There, too, new water will first go towards solving the crisis in Campina Grande and surrounding towns. Only then will officials think about agriculture.

“First we have to satisfy the thirst of urban consumers. Only then can we think of producing wealth,” said Joao Fernandes da Silva, the top water management official in Paraíba.

Rationing has particularly hurt poorer urban families. Many have no running water or water tanks and instead store water in plastic bottles.

For those who have waited decades for the São Francisco transfer, they will believe it only when they see the water flow.

Brito said he and his neighbors survive on the social programs that were the hallmark of Lula and his Workers Party administration. Though tainted by corruption allegations, Lula remains Brazil’s most popular politician ahead of presidential elections next year.

“Without the Bolsa Familia program, we would be dying of hunger,” said Brito, who believes shortages could persist even after the river transfer. “It’s political season again, so they promise us water, just for our votes.”

(Additional reporting by Ueslei Marcelino and Sergio Queiroz; Editing by Paulo Prada, Daniel Flynn and Bernadette Baum)

Storms ease California drought as reservoirs fill up

Vehicles drive on flooded freeway

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – Several months of wet weather have dramatically eased California’s years-long drought, replenishing reservoirs and parched aquifers and forcing state water officials to switch – at least temporarily – from managing shortages to avoiding floods.

With rain continuing to fall following a deluge that brought 20 inches (50 cm) of precipitation to some areas this week, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains – crucial for storing water needed in the state’s long, hot summers – is deeper and wetter than normal. Reservoirs were well above normal levels, state and federal drought experts said on Thursday.

“This is the wet winter that makes us cautiously optimistic,” Ted Thomas, a spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources, said on Thursday. “Conditions are improving.”

California has been in the grip of drought for five years, leading farmers to fallow a half-million acres 500,000 acres (200,0000 hectares) of cropland, and forcing some residents to rely on bottled water for drinking.

But the storms that have swept through the state since early autumn have released as much as 42 percent of the state from drought conditions, the U.S. Drought Monitor report said on Thursday, down from less than 3 percent a year ago.

Just 2 percent of the state was experiencing what scientists call “exceptional” drought, the worst category, down from 40 percent two years ago, said the report by the National Drought Mitigation Center.

So much water was coursing through California’s waterways this week that the state’s climatologist, Michael Anderson,

said he was too busy trying to help with flood control operations to talk about the drought on Thursday.

Engineers opened floodgates along the Sacramento River system, drenching low-lying land and sending water coursing into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in part to protect the state capital, Sacramento, said Dave Rizzardo, an expert with the state Department of Water Resources.

A high tide from the Pacific Ocean was expected to swell the delta, which supplies water for 25 million Californians, and engineers were watching for any levee breaches that would affect delta farming and suburban communities near Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area, Rizzardo said.

Thomas said, however, the state was not ready to declare the drought finished. He cautioned against putting too much faith in the Drought Monitor data, saying it relied on short-term events such as weather that did not fully reflect California’s water needs.

“It’s not over yet,” Thomas said. “We could go from wet right now to dry for the rest of the winter.”

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Peter Cooney)

California seeks long-term water savings as drought lingers

Mud cracks along a dried riverbed are pictured near San Ysidro, California

By Sharon Bernstein

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – California water regulators on Wednesday recommended tighter oversight of agricultural irrigation and a permanent ban on over-watering urban lawns, a first step toward developing a long-term conservation plan amid ongoing drought.

The proposal comes as nearly two-thirds of the state heads into a fifth year of severe drought despite a wet fall and heavy rains last winter that have ameliorated conditions in many areas.

“The last few years provided the wake-up call of all wake-up calls that water is precious and not to be taken for granted,” said Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, one of several state agencies that worked on the proposal.

California has been in the grip of drought since 2013. It has cost billions to the state’s agricultural economy, led a half-million acres of farmland to be fallowed and deprived some communities of reliable sources of drinking water.

In January 2014, Democratic Governor Jerry Brown declared the drought an emergency and in 2015 he ordered urban areas to cut back their water use by 25 percent. Earlier this year, Brown ordered the state to develop a long-term conservation plan.

“We learned during this drought that our planning efforts just weren’t robust enough,” said Max Gomberg, climate and conservation manager for the water board. Going forward, the most populous U.S. state will need to provide water for yet more people while also facing warmer and drier weather associated with climate change, he said.

Rain has returned to Northern California parts of the south over the past year, leading scientists at the U.S. Drought Monitor to declare about 25 percent of the state drought-free. Even so, 60 percent of California is still experiencing severe drought and it is not clear how long those conditions will persist.

The draft proposal released Wednesday will now go through a period of public comment before it is finalized, likely early next year. The legislature must also sign on to parts of the plan.

It calls for urban areas to submit annual water use budgets and plan for droughts of at least five years in length. Suppliers of agricultural water will be required to submit reports on water usage and show that they are working to increase efficiency.

Water utilities must also report how much water they lose through leaks, and speed up repairs.

Temporary requirements such as bans on over-watering lawns, hosing down sidewalks and washing cars with hoses that do not have a shut-off valve would become permanent under the plan.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Death toll rises to 7 in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains fires

By Steve Gorman

Nov 30 (Reuters) – The death toll from wildfires blazing in and around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee rose to seven on Wednesday even as drenching rains helped firefighters suppress flames that have left whole neighborhoods in ruins.

The tally of documented property losses from the fires also climbed to more than 700 structures damaged or destroyed throughout Sevier County, including at least 300 in the resort town of Gatlinburg.

On Tuesday, authorities reported about 150 structures damaged or destroyed by fire.

Aerial news footage broadcast on local television showed the burned-out, smoking ruins of dozens of homes surrounded by blackened trees in several neighborhoods.

In one piece of good news, Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters told a late afternoon news conference on Wednesday that three people who were trapped by the fire were safely rescued, treated at a local hospital and released.

He gave no details about the circumstances of their rescue.

But three more bodies were recovered earlier in the day, bringing the number of confirmed fatalities from the disaster to seven, but none of the victims had been positively identified, he said.

At least 14 people were previously reported injured.

Mandatory evacuation orders remained in effect for some 14,000 people in and around Gatlinburg, along with a dusk-to-dawn curfew for the city, known as the “gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains.”

But nearly all of the estimated 500 people forced from their homes in the nearby town of Pigeon Forge were allowed to return, according to fire department spokeswoman Trish McGee. Pigeon Forge is home to country music star Dolly Parton’s theme park, Dollywood, which suspended operations through Wednesday.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park was likewise closed to the public due to extensive fire activity and downed trees.

The so-called Chimney Top fire, the principal blaze menacing the area, exploded in the national park on Monday evening as wind gusts reached nearly 90 miles per hour (145 km per hour), spreading the flames through drought-parched trees and brush
into surrounding homes and businesses.

TV news footage showed numerous homes going up in flames, silhouetted against an ominous orange sky.

By Wednesday afternoon, the fire zone had scorched an estimated 15,700 acres, but firefighters made considerable progress in containing the blaze, helped by steady showers that drenched the area Tuesday night into Wednesday.

“We’re thankful to the big guy up above for that rain, that’s for sure,” Waters said.

Gatlinburg Fire Chief Greg Miller said many of his crews were busy on Wednesday helping clear downed power lines, mudslides and other debris from roadways to allow search teams and recovery crews into more remote areas of the fire zone.

President Barack Obama spoke on Wednesday with Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam to express condolences for lives lost and his sympathies for those displaced and injured, and to offer any support needed, according to the White House.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa
Shumaker)