Pollution linked to 1.2m famine victims

A STUDY says pollution from industrial nations was one of the possible causes of a devastating African famine that left 1.2 million people dead.

The starvation brought on by the 1970-85 drought stretched from Senegal to Ethiopia until rains finally returned.

A group of scientists in Australia and Canada says the drought may have been triggered by tiny particles of sulphur dioxide from factories and power plants thousands of miles away in North America, Europe and Asia.