Drinking the Sky Earth Report asked Dutch filmaker, Joost de Haas, to visit the wettest and driest places on earth to see how people cope with water - or the lack of it. This is his film. Cherapunjee, a former British settlement in northeastern India, is the wettest place on earth. Its annual rainfall is 11.5 metres - fifteen times that of western Europe. Life isn't easy for the inhabitants of Cherapunjee.
Plants rot in the ground and precious top soil is washed away.
But the present inhabitants of Cherapunjee, the Khasi tribe, have learnt how to create new soil from manure and food leftovers which they spread over the land after the rains have stopped. Ironically, water isn't their main problem. Even the wettest spot on earth is plagued by drought. Most of Cherapunjee's rain falls during the monsoon season which lasts for four months. The rest of the year is dry as a bone and villagers are forced to collect water from a pipeline - their only supply of fresh water.