The monster El Nino in the Pacific is inflicting a severe drought on Papua New Guinea and elsewhere in the Pacific and beyond, affecting about 2.5 million people in PNG alone.

The El Nino event, already among the four most powerful recorded, is continuing to intensify, the Bureau of Meteorology said this week. The resulting altered wind and rainfall patterns have prompted the bureau to raise the odds of a hotter and drier than usual end of the year for Australia, conditions that extend to neighbours to the north and east.

PNG and other Pacific nations are feeling the impact of the powerful El Nino. Credit:Wonesai Sithole/IOM

In PNG, there have been multiple reports of deaths, especially of children, due to food shortages although precise figures are not yet available.

As rivers have dried up, bitter frosts in the country's Highlands have destroyed the food gardens many ordinary villagers depend on for sustenance.