Environment

100 Million Suffer Food-Water Shortages From El NIño

One of the strongest El Niños on record has left nearly 100 million people in southern Africa, Asia and Latin America with acute food and water shortages since late last year.

The ocean warming has also made many populations vulnerable to diseases such as Zika, according to various governmental, U.N. and relief agencies.

UNICEF warns that nearly 1 million children in eastern and southern Africa are suffering from “severe acute malnutrition” after two years of drought, preceding the current near-record El Niño.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network said in a statement that rainfall in southern Africa “has so far been the driest in the last 35 years.”

Millions of other people in various parts of the world have suffered from heat waves, water shortages and wildfires since El Niño’s weather disruptions emerged in mid-2015.

El Niño's warmth is fading across the Pacific, but its influence on the world's weather will linger for months.