Droughts & Heat
The slow disasters — the great droughts, dust bowls and killer heatwaves that starved land and people across continents.
Part of Natural Disasters
52 moments in this segment.
- — The medieval Egyptian famine. A failure of the Nile flood around 1200 caused a famine so severe that chroniclers recorded scenes of horror in Cairo.
- — The Aztec famine of One Rabbit. A years-long drought caused a famine in the Aztec empire around 1450 so severe it entered legend as 'One Rabbit'.
- — The drought before the Revolution. Drought, hail and a brutal winter wrecked France's harvest in 1788, helping ignite the Revolution the next year.
- — The 1876-79 Northern Chinese famine. A catastrophic drought caused a famine that killed an estimated 9-13 million across northern China.
- — The Great Famine of 1876-78. Drought and colonial policy caused a famine that killed millions across southern India.
- — The global drought of 1876-78. A vast El Niño drought caused famines that killed tens of millions across India, China and Brazil.
- — The Dust Bowl. Years of drought and poor farming turned the American Great Plains to dust in the 1930s, driving hundreds of thousands from their land.
- — The Sahel droughts. Decades of drought across Africa's Sahel from the late 1960s brought famine to Ethiopia, Sudan and the Sahara's edge.
- — The 1980 US heat wave. A brutal heat wave and drought killed over 1,700 across the central and southern U.S. in 1980.
- — The 1988 North American drought. A severe drought and heatwave withered the U.S. farm belt in 1988 and fed the Yellowstone fires.
- — The 2005 Amazon drought. A once-in-a-century drought dried Amazon tributaries in 2005, a warning of the rainforest's fragility.
- — The Syrian drought. A years-long drought from 2006 drove farmers off the land in Syria, a stress that fed the later uprising.
- — The 2010 South Asia heat. A brutal pre-monsoon heatwave pushed temperatures above 48°C across India and Pakistan.
- — The 2010 Russian heatwave & fires. An unprecedented heatwave set Russia's peatlands ablaze, smothering Moscow in smoke and killing an estimated 55,000.
- — The 2011 Horn of Africa famine. The worst drought in 60 years caused famine across Somalia, killing an estimated 260,000.
- — The 2011 Texas drought. The worst one-year drought in Texas history withered crops and fuelled record wildfires.
- — California's 2012-16 drought. A severe multi-year drought forced California's first-ever mandatory statewide water restrictions.
- — The Sahel drought & Ethiopian famine. Prolonged drought across the Sahel caused the 1983-85 Ethiopian famine that killed hundreds of thousands and inspired Live Aid.
- — The São Paulo water crisis. A historic drought nearly emptied the reservoirs of São Paulo, Brazil's largest city, in 2014-15.
- — The 2015 India heatwave. A brutal heatwave across India and Pakistan killed over 3,500, melting roads in Delhi.
- — The 2015 North Korea drought. A severe drought hit North Korea in 2015, threatening its already fragile food supply.
- — The 2015-16 southern Africa drought. An El Niño drought scorched southern Africa in 2015-16, leaving millions hungry from Zimbabwe to Malawi.
- — The Holodomor. A man-made famine killed millions in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-33, its scars still felt today.
- — Cape Town's 'Day Zero' drought. A multi-year drought nearly forced Cape Town to shut off municipal water for four million people.
- — The 2018 European heatwave & drought. A hot, dry summer scorched northern Europe, revealing 'hunger stones' in Germany's rivers.
- — The 2018 Japan heatwave. A deadly heatwave in the summer of 2018 sent tens of thousands of Japanese to hospital.
- — The Chennai water crisis. In 2019 the Indian megacity of Chennai's reservoirs ran dry, and water arrived by train.
- — The 2019 European heatwaves. Two extreme heatwaves in 2019 set all-time records across France, Germany and Britain.
- — The Chinese famine of 1928-30. Drought and warlord conflict caused a famine that killed millions in northern China from 1928.
- — The Millennium Drought. A decade-long drought gripped southeastern Australia through the 2000s, draining rivers and reservoirs.
- — The 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome. An unprecedented heat dome sent temperatures to 49.6°C in Canada, killing over 600 and destroying the village of Lytton.
- — The Western megadrought. The American West's 2000s-2020s drought is the driest 22-year stretch in over 1,200 years.
- — The Iranian water crisis. Years of drought have dried Iran's lakes and rivers, sparking protests over water in 2021.
- — The 1936 North American heat wave. The most intense heat wave in North American history killed thousands amid the Dust Bowl in 1936.
- — The Horn of Africa drought. The worst drought in 40 years struck the Horn of Africa, threatening millions with famine.
- — The drying of the Po. Italy's longest river shrank to a trickle in the 2022 drought, exposing wartime wrecks and starving rice fields.
- — The 2022 European heatwave & drought. Europe's worst drought in 500 years dried rivers to their beds and drove record heat, with over 60,000 heat-related deaths.
- — The 2022 China heat and drought. A record heatwave dried up stretches of the Yangtze and forced factory shutdowns across China.
- — The drying of the Colorado River. By 2022 the megadrought had dropped Lakes Mead and Powell so low that the Colorado's water deliveries were cut.
- — The 2022-23 South American drought. A three-year drought devastated crops across Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil.
- — The North African water crisis. Multi-year drought has emptied reservoirs across Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, forcing water rationing.
- — The Bengal famine of 1943. Wartime policy, hoarding and a cyclone caused a famine that killed up to three million in Bengal.
- — The Great Chinese Famine. The world's deadliest famine, driven by policy and drought, killed tens of millions in China from 1959.
- — The 2023 Amazon drought. A historic drought dropped Amazon rivers to record lows, stranding communities and killing river dolphins.
- — The 2024 South Asia heatwave. A prolonged, deadly heatwave gripped India and Pakistan, with Delhi hitting record temperatures.
- — The 2024 Mexico heat and water crisis. A brutal heatwave and drought dried reservoirs and killed howler monkeys across Mexico in 2024.
- — The Indian famine of 1899-1900. One of the worst famines in Indian history followed the failure of the monsoon in 1899.
- — The 2024 Sicily and Sardinia drought. Sicily declared a state of emergency as reservoirs ran dry in the 2024 Mediterranean drought.
- — The 2003 European heatwave. A record heatwave across Europe killed more than 70,000 people, most of them elderly.
- — The 2025 European heatwaves. Extreme heat again gripped Europe in the summer of 2025, breaking records and fuelling wildfires.
- — The 1995 Chicago heatwave. A brutal heatwave killed over 700 people in Chicago in a week, mostly isolated elderly residents.
- — The North Korean famine. Floods, drought and policy caused a famine that killed hundreds of thousands in North Korea in the 1990s.
