Papua New Guinea — one of the wettest places on Earth — is running dry. A historic El Niño has shifted warm tropical waters eastward, starving the country of the rainfall that sustains virtually every system: food, water, energy, livelihoods. As many as 8 million people are affected, and some regions have received less than a quarter of their normal rainfall since August. The impacts cascade through a society where 85% of the population lives on subsistence farming. Family food gardens have shrivelled. In rural highland areas, families ration food to one meal a day. Women and girls bear the sharpest costs — walking three to four hours for water, eating last, and facing heightened risks of harassment and transactional sex as food scarcity deepens. In Morobe province's Bulolo district, smaller rivers have dried up entirely. Schools and health centres operate half-days or close outright for lack of water. Martha Zureno in Leklu village reports all local crops dead and gold-panning — the primary income source — impossible without water. A destructive hailstorm in Enga province buried sweet potato crops under ice, compounding losses in a province already in food crisis. Port Moresby faces its own version of the crisis. PNG Power has begun rolling electricity blackouts after falling dam levels gutted hydropower generation, warning disruptions could last up to 10 months. The capital is shrouded in smoke haze from El Niño-fuelled fires in PNG and neighbouring Indonesia. Fresh food from drought-stricken rural areas is drying up. A coalition of churches, trade unions, and business groups — led by the Community Coalition Against Corruption — has declared the situation a "national crisis" and accused the government of having "no coordinated plan to protect vulnerable communities." Co-chair Peter Aitsi notes that urban centres have been mostly shielded so far, but that buffer is eroding fast. Prime Minister James Marape has directed provincial and district authorities to prepare for a prolonged dry season and says cabinet is examining financial arrangements to support disaster responses. But the language — "examining," "tailoring provisions," "as they happen where appropriate" — suggests machinery still in first gear while the crisis accelerates. The structural diagnosis is stark. PNG's entire economic and social infrastructure is rain-dependent with no redundancy: no desalination, no thermal power backup at scale, no strategic food reserves, no irrigation. El Niño is not new — the 1997-98 event killed an estimated 2,000 people in PNG. What is new is the intensity, amplified by global heating, and the continued absence of the adaptive infrastructure that would convert a climate shock from an existential crisis into a manageable disruption.
