In southern Africa, the size of France, February was the driest in decades, killing crops and triggering power shortages that threaten to hit copper mines in a key production region, writes UNN citing Bloomberg.
Details
Last month, much of Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe received the least amount of rainfall (or close to it) since records began in 1981, preliminary data from the Climate Hazards Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara show.
The drought, blamed on the El Niño weather phenomenon, is the latest indicator of how seriously Africa is being affected by extreme weather events that scientists say are becoming more frequent and severe because of climate change.
Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema declared the drought a national disaster last week, with an estimated 45% of the planted area destroyed just as the main maize crop was due to mature. In Zimbabwe, some farmers have given up trying to grow and harvest crops, allowing cattle to graze on what is left. Water flows in the Zambezi River, which powers the turbines from which the two countries get their electricity, are less than a quarter of what they were a year ago.
The Zimbabwean government has warned that the 2024 harvest could be half of last year's.
Much of Botswana was also affected by El Niño, with the Botswana Meteorological Service noting that the vast majority of the country received significantly less rainfall than normal. State-supported farmers planted less than half of the area this season than in the previous season.
In Namibia, water levels in dams are already dangerously low. The main reservoir supplying the capital, Windhoek, is only 11% full and declining, according to Andries Koka, a spokesman for the national water service.
The drought is expected to reduce production outside agriculture. Zambia uses hydropower to generate about 85% of its electricity, and water levels in Kariba, the world's largest man-made freshwater lake that feeds the Zambezi, have fallen to 15% of storage capacity, meaning electricity will have to be rationed. Zimbabwe has already stepped up fanning blackouts.
According to the state agency that regulates the reservoir, inflows to the Cariboo are so meager this season that they could be among the lowest ever recorded.
Zambia's state-owned power utility will begin rolling blackouts of eight hours daily on March 11. It plans to ask mines in Africa's second-largest copper producer after the Democratic Republic of Congo to cut their electricity consumption by as much as 25 percent. Mines in Congo rely on Zambia's power supply and also face potential power shortages.
Supplement
El Niño is a largely seasonal phenomenon that increases the likelihood of extreme weather and climate events, according to the World Meteorological Organization. The current phenomenon is among the five strongest ever recorded and has contributed to drier and warmer conditions in parts of southern Africa, it said in a March 5 statement. Temperatures were four to five degrees Celsius higher than the average for February, it said.