KARANGANYAR, Indonesia: It’s been four long, hot months since Sunardi’s village has seen any rainfall as an El Nino-induced drought parches Indonesia, so the tobacco farmer does the only thing he can do to get water: Dig up a dry river bed.
In an hour or two, water – salty and muddy – will fill the freshly dug hole. Sunardi, and scores of other residents in Karanganyar village in Central Java province, then take the water home to drink, wash and irrigate their slowly dying crops.
“The drought in this village has been felt since April, and there has been no rain until now. The wells in this area have dried out, so residents can only get water from the river bed,” Sunardi, who only goes by one name, told Reuters.
“The plants here, such as corn, have all withered. Tobacco can live, but it doesn’t grow optimally, so we have to keep watering it with the river bed water too.”
Sunardi’s village has been digging up the river bed since June, when the water in their wells ran out.
Indonesia’s weather agency (BMKG) said the El Niño weather phenomenon, which brings prolonged hot and dry weather, is affecting more than two-thirds of the vast nation, including all of Java, the northern areas of Kalimantan and all but the coastal areas of Sumatra.