New Ethiopia famine 'dwarfs 80s disaster'

Ethiopia faces a famine dwarfing the disaster that hit the country in the 1980s, the country's prime minister warned today.

Meles Zenawi called for urgent international action to avoid a major human catastrophe. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that up to 15 million people were at risk

"The disaster we had in 84-85, the number involved was roughly a third to one half of the number of people involved now.

"So if that was a nightmare, this will be too ghastly to contemplate," he said.