NASA has warned that this year's El Nino is still growing and could end up being as strong

as the most destructive one ever recorded in late 1997.

NASA says a new satellite image of the weather system "bears a striking resemblance to the

one from December 1997,... which was blamed for extreme weather, including record rainfall

in California and Peru, heat waves across Australia, and fires in Indonesia.

The intense weather is estimated to have caused well over 20-thousand deaths in 1997 and 1998.

Aid agency Oxfam International says this year's El Nino could leave tens of millions of people

facing hunger, water shortages and disease in 2016 if early action isn't taken to prepare

vulnerable people from its effects.