The Waiting Earth: Communities and cultivators affected by Sri Lanka’s drought

Featured image courtesy Amalini De Sayrah

AMALINI DE SAYRAH-on 11/04/2017

At the time of writing, 488,277 families and 1,665,961 individuals are affected by the on-going drought in Sri Lanka. The country’s rice harvest has been halved, the worst on record in 40 years, with countless in need of food aid and life-saving support.

In comparison to the coverage of the 2016 and 2017 floods, mainstream media reporting on the drought is substantively poorer. It is sporadic, and with little to no emphasis on the long-term consequences, climate change, and the need to treat the drought not as aberration, but increasingly, the norm.

View the full story, compiled using Microsoft Sway, here, or scroll below.