La Nina behind east Africa's drought

摘要

Almost 10 million people in the Horn of Africa are facing a humanitarian emergency as the region grapples with its worst drought for 60 years, the UN warned this week. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that the main climatic trigger for the droughts is La Nina, a cyclical meteorological phenomenon affecting how much rain falls in Africa and elsewhere. "We've been predicting the La Nina phenomenon for the past six months, and when this happens, you get drought in the east and floods in the south," says Shukri Ahmed, an economist at the FAO.