For the first time in more than three decades, Sri Lankan farmer AM Pathmasena says, his well is running so dry that it barely provides enough water for his family and two cows. He has fallen victim to one of the country’s worst El Nino-driven droughts.
Sri Lanka is among the South Asian countries hardest hit by weather disruption this year, with some key farming districts recording rainfall deficits of 85 percent to 100 percent below long-term averages. The government has arranged for water to be delivered to tens of thousands of people.
“The drought has been intensifying. The amount of water seeping into the well is barely enough,” Pathmasena, 48, said while sitting in his hut in Galwela Yaya, a small village in one of the worst-hit districts, Ampara. “We dig a small hole and wait for the water to seep in to bathe.”
El Nino is a weather pattern characterized by unusually warm sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, often bringing drier conditions to parts of Asia and severe storms elsewhere.
This year is likely to be marked by a “super” El Nino, which could become the strongest on record, weather forecasters have said.
Soaring temperatures have already left large swathes of Sri Lanka’s north, east and southern regions parched, with small tanks, rivers and lakes that usually feed crops and provide drinking water drying out.
The Sri Lankan government has said the impact this year could be the worst in decades and that water levels at hundreds of such tanks in the country have dropped to about 10 percent.
Many houses on the main roads and those that are easily accessible get drinking water trucked in every three to five days, while some in remote areas wait for as many as 23 days, according to government officials and interviews with residents.
In the affected districts, people often wait for water supplies at their gates with large blue plastic water barrels while others gather at tube wells to bathe and collect water to take home to wash dishes and clothes and to cook as well.
“We supplement the water deliveries by gathering the last bit of the water in our well for washing and bathing but even then we sometimes run out,” said Konara Mudiyanselage Sumanawathie, 49, who lives in one of the worst-affected areas, Monaragala, about 160km from Colombo.
Farmers’ incomes, as expected, are taking a big hit, making it difficult to repay loans and even manage proper meals daily.
Before the drought, Pathmasena said he earned about 20,000 Sri Lanka rupees (US$60) a month growing cowpeas, but the crisis means he has lost it all, forcing him to become a daily-wage laborer to survive.
His son shuttered his chicken farm weeks ago due to the heat and water shortages. On a recent evening, Pathmasena asked his wife to first give water in tin vessels to their cows, before they sat to consume their meal.
“On some days, when we have nothing, we skip meals,” he said.
The US Department of the Treasury proposed a rule on Thursday to crack down on US high-tech investments such as supercomputing and artificial intelligence (AI) in China, Russia, North Korea and other “countries of concern.” The US government has been working for years to deny China and other adversaries investments that could help them boost their military power. That program began in 2023 when then-US president Joe Biden signed an executive order putting restrictions on outbound US investments in sectors such as semiconductors, quantum computing and AI going into China. The Treasury later established the Outbound Investment Security Program. In December last year,
RESERVES ADEQUATE: The central bank governor rejected claims that Taiwan was facing a cash shortage, saying that its financial system had ample savings The New Taiwan dollar’s 3 percent fall this year despite record exports and a widening trade surplus stems from foreign investors cashing in on the local stock market’s technology-driven rally and moving funds overseas, central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) told lawmakers yesterday. The NT dollar has become one of Asia’s weakest-performing major currencies this year. Foreign investors have reaped substantial gains from Taiwan’s surging stock market, prompting them to sell shares and rebalance their portfolios, Yang told a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee in Taipei. Their withdrawals have added to downward pressure on the NT dollar, offsetting support
Softbank Group Corp chief executive officer Masayoshi Son chose locations in Malaysia for US$50 billion in technology investments, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said, an outlay that would accelerate the billionaire’s global bet on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. Anwar said he had a videoconference with Son on Tuesday, during which the Japanese tech investor said he had picked regions in the Southeast Asian country for projects including data centers. “He said he had chosen Sarawak — Kuching — and Peninsular Malaysia to expand investment in what would be among the largest investments in the region, worth US$50 billion,” Anwar said in a
The artificial intelligence (AI) supercycle should last for more than two decades, former Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger told an event in Taipei yesterday, dismissing fears of an AI bubble amid mounting skepticism over massive infrastructure investments. “We do see that there will be periods of disruption, correction, etc. So, we do not think of it as an AI bubble,” Gelsinger, who is a general partner at Playground Global LLC, said at the US venture capital firm’s second annual Taiwan Deep Tech Summit. However, “we’ll have some speed bumps as different areas and different technology disruptions occur along it,” Gelsinger
Loading comments…