Governments around the Asia-Pacific region are preparing for the return of El Nino, the mysterious climatic phenomenon that caused devastating floods, forest fires, smog and famines across the world four years ago.
Climate scientists in several countries are predicting the return of El Nino after detecting its earliest signs, a tell-tale
warming of the Pacific Ocean.
If the warming continues over the next two months, then this spring could see a repeat of the disasters that brought suffering to millions of people in 1997 and early 1998.
Already, satellite photographs have revealed several forest fires burning on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
A limited number of fires occur every year, but they do not usually begin until later in April, suggesting that El Nino may already be having an effect.
The Indonesian government is making plans to import rice in anticipation of a drought like the one that devastated agriculture in 1997.
The 1997 El Nino was the worst on record, perhaps the worst in history, and its diverse effects are still being felt today.
In the coral atolls of Kiribati in the eastern Pacific, torrential rains swept away solid cover and killed the living reefs.
Across south-east Asia, there was an extended drought. Coffee, cocoa, sugar, rubber, oil palm and rice crops failed.
There were food shortages across south-east Asia and an outright famine in Papua Guinea.
The unusual dryness led to vast forest fires in Sumatra and Borneo.
When the smoke generated by these drifted over the densely populated cities of Malaysia and Singapore, it caused respiratory problems for millions of people and forced the closure of schools, public offices and airports.
The fires alone burnt 10 million hectares of land in Sumatra and Borneo, and the cost of the catastrophe is incalculable.
William Kininmouth of the United Nations World Meteorological Organisation said: "When an El Nino comes, it generally brings drought conditions in Indonesia, also in neighbouring countries such as the Philippines, along the Malay peninsula and in Vietnam.
"In some El Nino events the impact spreads as far north as China and also to the west as far as India."
So far the projections suggest that a new El Nino would be weaker than that of 1997, but the phenomenon is by its nature unpredictable.
Mr Kininmouth says: "One of the things about El Nino is that it comes as a surprise. We don't know until it starts to evolve."
- INDEPENDENT
