Drought In Mozambique

Another day, another report on water scarcity, this time in Mozambique where rivers are drying up.

Boys play along the banks of the Zambezi river in Mozambique. The country has been hit by
flooding in the north and drought in the south. Photograph: John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images

Excerpts from an article from The Guardian:

It rained in Mbalavala two weeks ago. The clouds built up from the south, a shower cleared the dusty air, but then, cruelly, it stopped after an hour. For a moment, the 120 families who live in the southern Mozambican village thought their two-year drought was ending.

But that was it. Since then there has been no hint of rain and the chances of planting crops this year in Mbalavala diminish every day as El Niño, the natural weather phenomenon that upturns normal weather patterns every few years in southern Africa, reaches its peak and Mozambique comes to the end of another dry rainy season.

For the second year running, Mbalavala’s maize fields, which should have been planted months ago, lie empty; the soil in vegetable gardens is like sand and what little water there is from an emergency borehole must be shared between cattle and people.

Read full article here: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/feb/17/mozambique-drought-hopes-harvest-evaporate?CMP=twt_gu