Category Archives: Extreme weather

A year on, the devastating long-term effects of Pakistan’s floods are revealed

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Country’s health and economy ruined as Islamic charity says rich nations must compensate those suffering worst of climate crisis

A year after Pakistan’s worst floods in living memory, a report by Islamic Relief Worldwide has revealed the devastating long-term impact on people, especially children, and argued that rich nations must compensate those countries most affected by the climate emergency.

Researchers from Islamic Relief who talked to people in the flood-affected areas found 40% of the children they surveyed had stunted growth and 25% were underweight as families struggle to access food and healthcare. About 80% of mothers reported sickness among children, with outbreaks of diarrhoea, malaria and dengue fever increasing.

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Anger in China over plan to use cities as ‘moat’ to save Beijing from floods

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Communist party secretary for Hebei made comments after visiting flood-hit areas earlier this week

Chinese social media users have reacted angrily to comments from a local Communist party official suggesting that the city of Zhuozhou and other flood-hit areas near Beijing should be used as a “moat for the capital”.

Ni Yuefeng, the Communist party secretary for Hebei, a province that borders the capital on three sides, made the comments after visiting flooded areas earlier this week. Typhoon Doksuri has ripped through north-east China, destroying homes and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate.

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Weather tracker: Typhoons Talim and Doksuri batter China

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Thousands of people evacuated from homes in Beijing, while South America swelters during heatwave

China has been battered by two typhoons in recent weeks that have caused severe flooding across the east coast. Typhoon Talim hit the south on 17 July, with gusts of 85mph (137km/h), according to the Guangdong weather bureau.

Days later, on 28 July, Typhoon Doksuri struck Fujian province on China’s south-eastern coast with gusts above 100mph.

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Typhoon Khanun leaves two dead in Japan and 166,000 homes without power

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Heavy rains and high winds lash Okinawa and Kagoshima, as storm slowly moves north-west before forecast change in direction towards mainland

About 166,000 households in south-western Japan’s Okinawa and Kagoshima prefectures were without power as Typhoon Khanun continued to hit with heavy rain and gusty winds, prolonging the damage potential.

The storm in the East China Sea was heading north-west at a slow speed with gusts of 222km/h (138mph), according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. It was projected to change direction to move east towards the country’s mainland until Tuesday, but its path was not determined, public broadcaster NHK said.

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Chinese firefighter ‘dies heroic death’ as Beijing reports heaviest rain in 140 years

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Extreme weather comes as China’s foreign ministry denies reports that it obstructed discussions on climate crisis at G20 meetings

China’s government awarded martyr status to a firefighter who died as he tried to rescue people trapped by heavy flooding that has pummelled Beijing and surrounding areas in the heaviest rain in at least 140 years.

Feng Zhen, a firefighter in Beijing’s Haidian district, was washed away by flood waters as he tried to rescue three people from a school building on Monday. The people escaped the area safely, but after receiving medical treatment Feng “died a heroic death”, according to state media.

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Aftermath of Typhoon Doksuri brought Beijing floods, meteorologists explain

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Rising ocean temperatures caused by climate crisis are also said to be causing China’s extreme weather

Summers in China are often wet, sometimes very wet, but nothing like the drenching that has engulfed Beijing and its neighbouring provinces this week.

As Beijing authorities lifted the flood alert on Wednesday morning, after the city’s heaviest rainfall for 140 years, 21 people across the region were confirmed dead. Dozens more were missing.

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Greek PM offers tourists affected by wildfires a free stay in Rhodes next year

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Kyriakos Mitsotakis acknowledges ‘inconvenience for visitors’ after 20,000 people were evacuated

Tourists whose holidays on the Greek island of Rhodes were cut short due to intense wildfires are being offered a one-week free stay next year, the Greek prime minister said.

Holidaymakers and local people were forced to flee homes and hotels as the fires burned for days in July, with about 20,000 tourists rescued from danger in the largest evacuation ever undertaken by the country.

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China: 31,000 forced to flee homes in Beijing as Typhoon Doksuri brings heavy rains

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Strongest storm to hit country in years has also caused widespread flooding and evacuations in province of Fujian

Two people are reported to have died in severe flooding that has engulfed parts of Beijing, as Typhoon Doksuri passed through China’s capital.

People’s Daily reported on Monday that two people were found unresponsive in a river in Mentougou, a district in west Beijing that has suffered some of the worst flooding. According to state broadcaster CCTV, more than 31,000 people have evacuated their homes in the city.

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Greece wildfires under control but strong winds still a threat, say officials

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‘No active front’ in Rhodes, Corfu and central Greece blazes as more than 460 firefighters remain on alert

Wildfires that have scorched Greece for more than two weeks are under control, but firefighters remain in key hotspots as strong winds remain a threat, officials have said.

“Scattered fire pockets are being extinguished,” the fire department said on Saturday, adding that there was “no active front” in the three biggest wildfires in Rhodes, Corfu and central Greece that forced thousands of people to flee.

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‘This is another beast’: UN chief heat officer on living amid fires, how to cool cities and fears for her daughter

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Eleni Myrivili, whose job is to help cities prepare for extreme heat, says many people do not understand how deadly it can be

It is “shocking” how little people know about the danger of hot weather, the United Nations global chief heat officer has said, as high temperatures bake cities across the northern hemisphere and politicians backslide on climate promises.

A study this month found that extreme heat in Europe last summer killed 61,000 people, most of whom were women and older people. As well as killing people through heatstroke, hot weather can push the bodies of people with heart and lung disease into deadly overdrive.

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Most fires in Greece were started ‘by human hand’, government says

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Official blames arsonists for the majority of 667 blazes that have spread in the extreme weather

Most of the 667 fires that have erupted across Greece in recent weeks were started “by human hand”, the country’s senior climate crisis official has said.

As the Mediterranean country emerges from an unprecedented, 15-day period of heatwave-induced infernos, the scale of the destruction is finally being laid bare.

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More than 170m Americans under heat alerts as heatwave expands

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Between 250 and 275 million will face heat indexes of 90F as heatwave moves into parts of Great Plains, midwest and north-east

Over 170 million Americans are under heat alerts this week, according to the National Weather Service, as a heat wave that has affected the southern US for weeks has expanded into parts of the Great Plains, midwest and north-east US.

Between 250 and 275 million people in the US will face heat indexes of at least 90F (32C), as the US braces for the hottest weather of the summer averaged across the country.

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‘Everyone is indoors’: life on pause on hottest day of Greek heatwave

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There were few people to be seen in Mystras as temperatures were forecast to reach 46C

“It’s hot,” said Panagiotis Vahaviolos, with some understatement. “So hot it’s a little difficult to move.” On the hottest day of the longest and most intense heatwave to befall Greece since record-keeping began, the restaurateur had sought sanctuary in the shadows to escape the fierce sun.

Neither he, nor anyone else, if they could help it, was moving in Mystras, the settlement beneath the great hilltop fortress that is the country’s most significant Byzantine site. In temperatures nudging 44C, life had come to a standstill. With the exception of holidaymakers who had reached the village’s flag-stoned central square, there were few people to be seen.

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Florida ocean records ‘unprecedented’ temperatures similar to a hot tub

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The 90-100F readings add to previous warnings over warming water putting marine life and ecosystems in peril

The surface ocean temperature around the Florida Keys soared to 101.19F (38.43C) this week, in what could be a global record as ocean heat around the state reaches unprecedented extremes.

A water temperature buoy located in the waters of Manatee Bay at the Everglades national park recorded the high temperature late on Monday afternoon, US government data showed. Other nearby buoys topped 100F (38C) and the upper 90s (32C).

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Storms and wildfires kill seven in Italy as extreme weather continues

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Three people killed in Sicily fires and four in northern storms as hundreds forced to flee homes

Seven people have died in the past 24 hours as two extreme weather events split Italy between wildfires in the south and violent storms in the north.

Fires in Sicily caused the temporary closure of Palermo airport after temperatures in the city climbed to 47C on Monday.

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Rhodes wildfires are climate wake-up call, says UK minister

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Patrick Courtown sounds warning as evacuation flights head to Greek island to rescue stranded Britons

Wildfires in Rhodes are a “wake-up call” on the effects of the climate crisis, a UK government minister has said, as empty planes were sent to the Greek island to help bring home stranded Britons.

After a mass evacuation from parts of Rhodes, members of the House of Lords were told the situation was “stabilising” and there was no immediate need for the government to advise people to stop travelling there.

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Mediterranean is a hotspot for climate change, says Greek PM

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Kyriakos Mitsotakis warns of difficult summer ahead as wildfires continue to rage and more tourists fly home

The Mediterranean is a “hotspot for climate change”, the Greek prime minister has said, as more tourists boarded repatriation flights home and a firefighting mission ended in tragedy when a water-bombing plane crashed into a hillside.

The water bomber, a Canadair CL215, smashed into a hillside in Evia in the battle to extinguish flames near a village outside Karystos. Greece’s airforce, to which the plane belongs said it was being flown by two Greek pilots, and they had launched a rescue mission.

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Nova Scotia: body found amid search for four missing after ‘furious’ flooding

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Two children among the missing when vehicles were submerged on road after more than 200m of rain pummeled some regions

The body of a 52-year old man and other human remains have been discovered by emergency teams searching for four people who went missing in historic flooding after more than 200mm (7.87in) of rain pummeled some regions of Nova Scotia at the weekend.

The man’s body was found near West Hants in Nova Scotia, on the south-eastern coast of Canada, where search and rescue teams were looking for two children, a youth and a man who were in two vehicles which became submerged in flood water.

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Algeria wildfires kill dozens of people including 10 soldiers

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About 7,500 firefighters trying to bring blazes under control and 1,500 people evacuated as heatwave spreads

Thirty-four people including 10 soldiers have been killed by wildfires in the mountainous Béjaïa and Bouïra regions of Algeria, as a heatwave spreads across north Africa and southern Europe.

About 8,000 firefighters were trying to bring the flames under control, authorities said, adding that about 1,500 people had been evacuated.

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Mexico steps up rain-making project amid intense heatwave and drought

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Government claims 98% success rate for cloud seeding but critics urge improving irrigation and water supply systems

Amid a historic heatwave and months of drought, Mexico’s government has launched the latest phase of a cloud seeding project it hopes will increase rainfall.

The project, which began in July, involves planes flying into clouds to release silver iodide particles which then, in theory, will attract additional water droplets and increase rain or snowfall.

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