Category Archives: Natural disasters and extreme weather

‘The water will come back’: why Kenya’s struggle against flooding is far from over

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Record-breaking rainfall has devastated communities – and with thousands displaced and more rain predicted the picture is bleak

Using a short piece of nylon line with a hook at one end and a long thin stick on the other, a mechanic and a nightclub doorman have only caught one small fish all day.

“I’ve never been a fisherman before,” says Erick Ochieng on the edge of a flooded creek in the port city of Kisumu on the banks of Lake Victoria. “I used to work as a bouncer but nightclubs have closed. Sometimes my family sleeps without eating.”

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New Zealanders – like Jacinda Ardern – might not be shocked by earthquakes, but we do get scared | Charlotte Graham-McClay

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Many of us recognised ourselves in the PM’s cool response to an earthquake on live TV, but we do fear the ‘big one’

As I awoke to the bedroom shuddering and rattling around me on Monday morning, my first thought was a frantic household census, followed by the realisation that I was alone at home and not responsible for anyone’s safety but my own. My second, before my eyes had even properly unstuck themselves from sleep, was: “Ugh, not this again.”

Moments later, the earthquake – a magnitude 5.9 shake that hit about an hour’s drive north of Wellington, New Zealand, where I live – was subsiding. It rattled the lower part of the North Island for just 15 seconds or so, long enough for a little tendril of fear to uncurl – would it build, or die away? Was this “the big one”?

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Western Australia storm: 50,000 homes without power as state battered by wild weather

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Remnants of ex-Tropical Cyclone Mangga whip up 100km/h wind gusts, dust storms and heavy rain as Perth and state’s south prepares for onslaught

Some 50,000 homes in Western Australia are still without power as the state continues to be battered by wild weather for a second day in a row, in a “rare event” described as a “once-in-a-decade” storm.

The state has experienced the wildest autumn weather in years, as the remnants of ex-Tropical Cyclone Mangga collided with a cold front and trough, whipping up gusts of about 100km/h.

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Entire Western Australia coast to be battered by ‘once-in-a-decade’ storm

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Ex-Tropical Cyclone Mangga expected to bring 100km/h winds, heavy rain and massive waves along a 3,000km stretch of coast

A massive “once-in-a-decade” storm is expected to hit Australia’s entire west coast on Sunday and Monday, bringing potentially dangerous conditions and prompting authorities to place defence force units on standby.

The Bureau of Meteorology said the storm – the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Mangga combined with a cold front – represented an “unusually widespread severe weather event”.

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Albanese demands Michael McCormack apology for ‘hair on fire’ climate change quip

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Labor leader says deputy PM’s comment about activism is ‘entirely inappropriate’ after recent bushfires

Anthony Albanese has demanded the deputy prime minister and Nationals leader, Michael McCormack, apologise for observing that a lot of people “set their hair on fire” about climate change, given the recent experience of the catastrophic summer of bushfires.

The Labor leader said McCormack’s comment on Friday was “entirely inappropriate” given the government had conceded that climate change was one of the factors in the fires “that saw thousands of homes lost, that saw millions of hectares burnt, and that had a devastating impact on the communities of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia”.

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Kolkata surveys damage after bearing brunt of Cyclone Amphan

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State chief minister says areas of city will have to be rebuilt from scratch after deadly storm

The Indian city of Kolkata has been left devastated by the worst cyclone it has seen in 100 years, which swept through India and Bangladesh on Wednesday and killed at least 84 people.

Kolkata, home to almost 15 million people, bore the brunt of Cyclone Amphan, which tore roofs off buildings, smashed windows, pulled down trees and pylons and overturned cars.

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Super-cyclone Amphan kills up to 20 in India and Bangladesh

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Strong winds tore down electricity pylons, walls and buildings, with full scale of damage still being estimated

The most powerful cyclone to hit Bangladesh and eastern India in more than 20 years tore down homes, carried cars down flooded streets and claimed the lives of up to 20 people.

Authorities began surveying the damage Thursday after millions spent a sleepless night which saw 165km/h (102mph) winds carrying away trees, electricity pylons, walls and roofs, and transformer stations exploding.

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Michigan: threat of toxic contamination looms after dam failures trigger flooding

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Catastrophic flooding could potentially release toxic pollution from site contaminated by Dow Chemical

Catastrophic flooding triggered by dam failures in Michigan could potentially release toxic pollution from a site contaminated by the industrial giant Dow Chemical.

Dow’s facility in Midland, Michigan, where the company is headquartered along the Tittabawassee River, manufactured chlorine-based products beginning in the early 1900s. The company discharged dioxins, chemical compounds which can cause reproductive harm and cancer, into the river.

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Super cyclone Amphan: evacuations in India and Bangladesh slowed by virus

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Thousands of migrant workers left jobless by Covid-19 pandemic are still on the roads, and evacuations have been hampered by distancing rules

The Bay of Bengal’s fiercest storm this century – super cyclone Amphan – was bearing down on millions of people in eastern India and Bangladesh on Wednesday, with forecasts of a potentially devastating and deadly storm surge.

Authorities have scrambled to stage mass evacuations away from the path of Super Cyclone Amphan, which is only the second “super cyclone” to form in the north-eastern Indian Ocean since records began.

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‘People are desperate’: floods and rock slides devastate western Uganda

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Villagers who have lost everything are sheltering in makeshift camps where food, bedding and water are in short supply

It was about 1am last Thursday when Dorothy Masika was woken by the rumble of water and boulders as they crashed down Mount Rwenzori.

Then came the alarms raised by those living in the hilltop areas, those who could run, racing down to warn people along the valley and lowlands to run. A torrent of water was on its way down the mountain. Four rivers in Kasese district – the Nyamwamba, Mubuku, Nyamughasana and Lhubiriha – had burst their banks.

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Potentially fatal bouts of heat and humidity on the rise, study finds

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Scientists identify thousands of extreme events, suggesting stark warnings about global heating are already coming to pass

Intolerable bouts of extreme humidity and heat which could threaten human survival are on the rise across the world, suggesting that worst-case scenario warnings about the consequences of global heating are already occurring, a new study has revealed.

Related: One billion people will live in insufferable heat within 50 years – study

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Tornadoes rip through US south leaving trail of devastation and killing dozens

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  • More than two dozen tornadoes reported in four states
  • Louisiana sheriff reports ‘extreme flooding’ seen rarely ‘if ever’

At least six people were killed after severe storms tore through a number of southern states late on Wednesday, adding to weeks of extreme weather that had already killed more than two dozen people and destroyed hundreds of homes.

Related: Tornadoes and storms hit US south as six killed in Mississippi

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Record rain triggered 2018 Kīlauea volcano eruptions, says study

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Research on events in Hawaii suggests climate crisis could increase eruptions around world

The spectacular eruptions of the Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii in 2018 were triggered by extreme rainfall in the preceding months, research suggests.

Scientists say the finding raises the possibility that climate breakdown, which is causing more extreme weather, could lead to an increase in eruptions around the world.

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Tornado strikes Louisiana as powerful storm could affect over a dozen states

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Twister destroyed buildings in Monroe, Louisiana, while local media said at least two tornadoes touched down in central Texas

A tornado strike destroyed homes and left a trail of devastation across parts of Louisiana on Sunday, as forecasters warned that a powerful Easter storm could affect more than a dozen states and millions of people before the early hours of Monday.

The storm provided a dilemma for public safety officials trying to find the balance between wanting people to stay in lockdown for the coronavirus pandemic and wanting them to leave their homes for shelter if conditions worsened.

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Awakening volcanic region in Iceland ‘could cause disruption for centuries’

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Reykjanes peninsula’s last active period started in 10th century and lasted 300 years

Volcanic activity is escalating in a region of Iceland that has not erupted for 800 years, with scientists warning it could cause disruption for centuries to come.

Since 21 January, the Reykjanes peninsula south-west of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, has experienced more than 8,000 earthquakes and about 10cm of land uplift due to magma intrusions underground.

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Cyclone Harold: Aerial footage shows destruction across Vanuatu – video

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Tropical Cyclone Harold lashed the South Pacific island of Vanuatu , ripping off roofs and downing telecommunications, before moving towards Fiji and Tonga. The powerful cyclone made landfall on Monday in Sana province, an island north of Vanuatu's capital Port Vila, with winds as high as 235 kilometres an hour. Aerial videos showed buildings with missing roofs, with some flattened to the ground from the impact of the cyclone. The weather system weaken slightly as it moved towards Fiji but still brought high winds and flooding before moving towards Tonga


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Lockdown has cut Britain’s vibrations, seismologists find

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There’s a kind of hush all over the world as the reduction in human activity stops the Earth buzzing so much

The dramatic quietening of towns and cities in lockdown Britain has changed the way the Earth moves beneath our feet, scientists say.

Seismologists at the British Geological Survey have found that their sensors are twitching less now that human activity has been curtailed, leading to a drop in the anthropogenic din that vibrates through the planet.

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Climate crisis may have pushed world’s tropical coral reefs to tipping point of ‘near-annual’ bleaching

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Exclusive: Mass bleaching seen along Great Barrier Reef could mark start of global-scale event, expert warns

Rising ocean temperatures could have pushed the world’s tropical coral reefs over a tipping point where they are hit by bleaching on a “near-annual” basis, according to the head of a US government agency program that monitors the globe’s coral reefs.

Dr Mark Eakin, coordinator of Coral Reef Watch at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Guardian Australia there was a risk that mass bleaching seen along the length of the Great Barrier Reef in 2020 could mark the start of another global-scale bleaching event.

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‘We can’t go back to normal’: how will coronavirus change the world?

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Times of upheaval are always times of radical change. Some believe the pandemic is a once-in-a-generation chance to remake society and build a better future. Others fear it may only make existing injustices worse. By Peter C Baker

Everything feels new, unbelievable, overwhelming. At the same time, it feels as if we’ve walked into an old recurring dream. In a way, we have. We’ve seen it before, on TV and in blockbusters. We knew roughly what it would be like, and somehow this makes the encounter not less strange, but more so.

Every day brings news of developments that, as recently as February, would have felt impossible – the work of years, not mere days. We refresh the news not because of a civic sense that following the news is important, but because so much may have happened since the last refresh. These developments are coming so fast that it’s hard to remember just how radical they are.

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Zagreb hit by earthquake while in coronavirus lockdown

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Croatian capital hit by its biggest quake in 140 years, according to PM, causing damage and injury

A strong earthquake has shaken the Croatian capital, Zagreb, bringing much of the population on to the streets after social distancing regulations to prevent the spread of coronavirus had been put in place.

The quake, which struck shortly after 6am local time on Sunday, caused widespread damage, including to the city’s cathedral, and the evacuation of hospitals. A 15-year-old was in a critical condition and 16 others were injured as a result of the quake, Croatian authorities said on Sunday afternoon.

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