At least 4 million people in Zimbabwe are waiting on emergency food aid due to one of the worst droughts in living memory. The situation is so bad it prompted President Robert Mugabe to declare it a national disaster in February.

Just part of the trail of devastation left by the El Nino phenomenon. It’s the most severe drought in more than two decades and the worst Sabhuku Machaka has ever seen.

"In a normal year I harvest and deliver to the grain marketing board 27 tonnes of maize. But this year I don’t think I can even get a single bucket from these fields," Masvingo villager Sabhuku Machaka said.

Masvingo, the country’s most populous province, is one the hardest hit areas. The circumstances elsewhere are equally as bad.

Seven hundred kilometres away is Gachegache community at the border with Zambia. It’s a perennially arid area, which has been pushed further to brink this year.

Most of the villagers here are getting by on just one meal a day.

At least one and half million children in the country are at risk of hunger and according to UNICEF more than 40,000 children are undergoing treatment for acute malnutrition

In Gachegache more cases are being reported and there are fears the numbers could climb further.

"According to our statistics there are so many of them who are nearly on the line that is to say these are suffering from malnutrition. And having no programme in sight at the moment to try and alleviate that problem there is a high possibility that the severity will be much higher because the trend is already going up," Community health officer Richard Ganye said.

Earlier this year government announced plans to launch a state funded school feeding scheme, to start in May, for children in the country’s most vulnerable regions.

In total Zimbabwe is aiming to raise 1.5 billion dollars to feed more than 4 million people at risk of starvation.

The Chinese government has committed 24.6 million dollars worth of rice. The embassy is working with Zimbabwe government officials on the logistics to bring in those much-needed imports.

The drought has also affected livestock killing thousands of cattle and drying up water sources. Levels at Kariba Dam, the country’s largest water body and the primary source of livelihood for Gachegache fishermen, are dangerously low.

Without fish to eat or trade for other food, all the people here can do now is wait and hope that aid is on its way.