Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, addressing the drought in the state of New South Wales, which produces one-quarter of the country's agricultural output, said, "Now we are the land of drought." Australia recently passed legislation to provide hundreds of millions of dollars worth of relief aid to farmers, including funds for mental health support.

Ethiopia has been suffering from ongoing drought conditions since 2015, causing massive food shortages. The Ethiopian government said that some 8.5 million citizens required emergency food assistance in 2017 and that nearly 400,000 infants suffered acute malnutrition. Furthermore, the drought threatens to end traditional nomadic herding in the region.

Conservation and late-season rains saved South Africa's Cape Town from an apocalyptic Day Zero scenario, in which water would have to be turned off and emergency rations issued, The drought, which was one of the worst in decades, emptied water reservoirs and caused some experts to suggest hauling icebergs from Antarctica avert a crisis.

Europe's sweltering heat has been compounded by a lack of rain. Not only have citizens been suffering the health consequences, which affect health care systems and labor productivity, crops have also been hit hard. Farmers across the continent fear bankruptcy due to poor crops and the EU Joint Research Center predicts "an increase in drought frequency and intensity in the future."

Greece has been facing the dual problem of flash flooding in some regions and drought in others. Crete's farmers said they could lose up to 40 percent of their crop this year due to an extremely dry winter. Though they are watering, they say it is not enough to nourish their crops. Water levels are so low that previously submerged villages have begun to reappear in reservoirs across the country.

Sweden, which has not seen rain for over three months, is experiencing its worst drought since 1944. The situation threatens to cause severe crop losses costing farmers hundreds of thousands of euros. Sweden has been the site of massive forest fires and has even seen temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Arctic Circle.

The United Kingdom fears serious threats to its food supply chain due to the effects of this summer's drought. The country's National Farmers Union said the country is experiencing "tinderbox conditions." This adds to problems brought on by the prospect of needed self-reliance in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

India has been plagued by water shortages due to rising population and mismanagement but also aggravated by drought, causing many areas of the country to run out of water. Bangalore was recently added to the list of global cities most likely to run out of drinking water. Other cities on the list include Cape Town, South Africa; Jakarta, Indonesia and Sao Paolo, Brazil.

The US government said 29 percent of the country is currently experiencing drought, with conditions affecting some 75 million people. Although wildfires in California have captured the world's attention, farming states, like Kansas, have once again been suffering. Kansas was one of the states crippled by the famous 1930s Dust Bowl.

The Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria were the deadliest in Australia's history. They came on the heels of a record heat wave — with scorching temperatures reaching the mid-40s Celsius (around 113 degrees Fahrenheit) for several days before the blazes started. In the dry heat, all it took was a spark to ignite an apocalyptic firestorm.

As many as 400 individual fires broke out on February 7, 2009. When it was all over, they had killed 173 people and razed 2,133 homes in addition to hundreds of other buildings. Whole towns had been annihilated. In many cases, people who had lost everything did not return to rebuild.

David Barton's home in Marysville, Victoria, burned down during the Black Saturday bushfires. He and his then-wife survived but the traumatic experience still haunts him and contributed to the eventual failure of his marriage. He wasn't alone. Many other couples who lived through the events split up. Eventually, he returned to Marysville alone.

Fanned by strong winds, the firefronts of bushfires can grow to more than 100 meters (328 feet) high. In such extreme situations, flight is the only option. Some of those who tried to defend their homes using their garden hoses during the Black Saturday fires were later found dead in their yards, some with melted garden hoses still in their hands.

Bushfire weather in Australia has become more frequent over the past 30 years, and Australia's climate commission has concluded that: "The intensity and seasonality of large bushfires in southeast Australia appears to be changing, with climate change a possible contributing factor."

But fires as such are not a new phenomenon on the world's driest inhabited continent. And since they have always been a fact of life, Australia's fauna and flora have adapted to these conditions. Species that can deal with fires and their aftermath have thrived.

Eucalyptus is one such species. The trees are true survivors when it comes to bushfires. But they don't just survive; they even promote fires. In fact, eucalyptus leaves contain an oil with such a high degree of octane that it can be used as fuel. The eucalyptus fares better in blazes than other trees, so fires help it eliminate competition.

Several birds of prey, including the black kite, take this a step further. They pick up burning branches from existing fires and drop them elsewhere to start new ones. As the flames spread, they drive small rodents and birds out of hiding, making it easy for the "firehawks" to catch them.

Many fire-resistant plants, including some eucalyptus, posess a lignotuber. This thick woody section at their base contains buds from which new stems can sprout. They also store starch, which provides fuel for the plants to grow when they cannot photosynthesize. This allows them to rebound quickly after a fire.

An old dead tree lies like a skeleton on the scorched earth in a property located to the west of Tamworth, a rural (and country music) center in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Although still winter, 100 percent of New South Wales is now in drought, with the state of Queensland to the north also dry. The drought is expected to continue for months, and bushfire season has started early.

In what could be a scene from the red planet, a kangaroo's shadow is captured as the animal drinks from a water tank on a barren farm to the west of Gunnedah, a town in northwest New South Wales. Since the beginning of June 2018, the drought has continued unabated. "I have been here all my life, and this drought is feeling like it will be around a while," property owner Ash Whitney told Reuters.

Sheep have long been the backbone of the Australian agricultural sector, grazing the nation's vast open plains and providing meat and wool for international markets. But now farmers suffering from drought are having to shoot their sheep for lack of pasture. The federal government's drought relief package announced in August 2018 will not make up for stock losses.

A farmer ploughing arid land near Gunnedah inadvertently creates vast, eerily beautiful symmetrical patterns that ultimately signal crop failure. Greg Stones is a farmer who grows grains and runs livestock in the same area. "This would be the first time in two generations, back to the 1930s, that we haven't got a crop up in the autumn or winter time," he told AFP.

"The land is too dry ... We've put cattle on the highway [near the farm] for the first time in my life [so] they get a bit of rough grass," Greg Stones continued. This image from the far western town of Walgett in New South Wales shows a lone farmer attending to his water trough and tanks on his desolate, drought-stricken property in July 2018.

Sheep eat grain dropped on a desert-scape that was once once fertile grazing land on the outskirts of Tamworth in central New South Wales. But the extra feed is causing financial ruin. "This drought is longer and more widespread than any drought we've seen in over 50 years, so that's why we've got to provide additional support," said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull upon announcing an aid package.

A farmer feeds his cattle branches cut from a tree on his property located west of Gunnedah in June 2018. Though aid has since been offered to these farmers, "It was probably a little bit late coming for some people. They didn't act fast enough," another nearby farmer, Col Barton, told AFP. The only hope now is rain.

Drought is a naturally occurring phenomenon across the highly arid Australian continent. This close-up view of the dried-out Wellshot Creek that runs through a cattle station in Longreach in the state of Queensland captured a 2014 drought that was the most widespread on record for the state. Around 80 percent of the region was affected.

A lone cow sits in a parched paddock in northwest New South Wales in October 2006 during the longest widespread drought in history. Then, farmers also had to hand-feed stock. This big dry was worse and more widespread than ever before, posing a massive economic challenge to the Earth's driest inhabited continent and a debate about whether farmers should even run livestock on such marginal land.