Category Archives: Extreme weather

At least 47 people killed and 85 injured by landslides in Tanzania

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Toll expected to rise after heavy rains caused flooding in Katesh in country’s north

At least 47 people have been killed and 85 others injured in landslides caused by flooding in northern Tanzania, a local official has said, with warnings the toll would rise.

Heavy rain on Saturday hit the town of Katesh, 300km (186 miles) north of the capital, Dodoma, district commissioner Janeth Mayanja said on Sunday. “Up to this evening, the death toll reached 47 and 85 injured,” Queen Sendiga, regional commissioner in the Manyara area of northern Tanzania, told local media. Both warned that the death toll was likely to increase.

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Two years after silt and mud trashed them, Northern Rivers schools rise from ruin

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Dave Lee, principal of the newly rebuilt Mullumbimby public school, vividly recalls the emotion of his first visit to assess the flood damage

“My first memories were just the silt and the mud,” says Dave Lees, summoning back his impressions from the day he returned to the Mullumbimby public school campus, the day after it was swallowed by flood waters.

“It was just a brown, smelly, clay-laden, dirty space. It looked like another planet,” the school principal says.

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Weather tracker: deaths after first heavy snowfall of winter hits eastern Europe

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Thousands of towns and villages in Moldova, Ukraine and Bulgaria left without electricity as cold snap bites

Heavy snowfall and blizzards across eastern European countries this week have resulted in a number of deaths, and left thousands of towns and villages without electricity, after the first major cold snap of the season.

In Moldova, four people were reported dead over the weekend, with two bodies being recovered from cars that had been buried in snowdrifts. In Ukraine, severe snowstorms left 10 people dead across the Odesa, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Kyiv regions. Fifteen hundred towns and villages were left without power, with one snowstorm in Odesa leaving 2,500 people in need of rescue and about 850 vehicles requiring towing. Southern Ukraine was the worst affected, as cars and buses slid off frozen roads, with local authorities battling strong winds to rescue vehicles. Bulgaria was also badly affected, declaring a state of emergency as winter storms left more than 1,000 villages without electricity.

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Climate crisis a ‘substantial risk’ to fight against malaria, says WHO

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New report says disease-carrying mosquitoes thrive in rising temperatures, leading to transmission in hitherto unaffected areas

The climate crisis poses a major threat to the fight against malaria, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), with evidence suggesting extreme weather events and rising temperatures have already led to spikes in cases.

Mosquitoes, the carriers of the disease, thrive in warm, damp and humid conditions, which are increasing with global heating.

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‘A biodiversity catastrophe’: how the world could look in 2050 – unless we act now

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The climate crisis, invasive species, overexploitation of resources and pollution could break down crucial ecosystems. We asked experts to lay out the risks and offer some solutions

The continued destruction of nature across the planet will result in major shocks to food supplies and safe water, the disappearance of unique species and the loss of landscapes central to human culture and leisure by the middle of this century, experts have warned.

By 2050, if humanity does not follow through on commitments to tackle the five main drivers of nature loss critical natural systems could break down just as the human population is projected to peak.

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Weather tracker: Ethiopia hit by severe drought amid east Africa floods

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More than 50 people dead in Tigray and Amhara regions while UN warns of ‘crisis-level hunger or worse’ in Somalia

The regions of Tigray and Amhara in northern Ethiopia have continued to experience severe drought conditions with more than 50 people dead, as well as 4,000 cattle.

While northern Ethiopia suffers from droughts, the southern and eastern parts of the country, along with Kenya and Somalia, have been hit by flooding. Somalia suffered the worst of the flooding, with 50 people reported dead. According to the Somali disaster management agency almost 700,000 people have been forced to leave their homes.

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Madagascan heatwave ‘virtually impossible’ without human-caused global heating

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Study finds impact of heat on millions of people went unrecorded, highlighting limitations many African countries face

A record-breaking heatwave in Madagascar in October would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused global heating, a study has shown.

The extreme temperatures affected millions of very poor people but the damage to their lives was not recorded by officials or the media. Many governments in Africa lack the capabilities to record climate impacts. The scientists behind the report said this lack of information made implementing measures to avoid deaths very difficult.

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State of emergency declared in parts of France after record rainfall

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Floods force evacuation of homes, schools and town halls in Calais region and in the Alps

Widespread flooding in northern and eastern France has led to thousands of people having to evacuate their waterlogged homes, the collapse of roads and the closure of schools and public buildings.

Record rainfall has caused rivers to break their banks, forcing the government to declare an official state of emergency in hundreds of towns and villages.

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Thousands without water after Storm Ciarán disrupts Surrey treatment works

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Thames Water has provided bottled water to people in Guildford, Godalming and surrounding areas

Thousands of people have been left without water after Storm Ciarán caused problems at a treatment works in Surrey, Thames Water has said.

A major incident was declared as at least 13,500 homes in Guildford, Godalming and the surrounding areas were left without water or with low pressure by 2.50pm on Sunday, while a further 6,500 were expected to lose supply later in the day.

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Storm Ciarán leaves seven dead in Italy as torrential rain causes flooding

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Hundreds forced to evacuate homes and others left without power in Tuscany as storm sweeps across Europe

A seventh person has been found dead and another is still missing more than a day after rivers burst their banks following torrential rain in the central Italian region of Tuscany, the Ansa news agency reported.

The body of a 69-year-old man was found in the town of Campi Bisenzio, about 9 miles (15km) north-west of Florence, the news agency said. Officials earlier said six people had died in the deluge that started late on Thursday.

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‘The children screamed for hours’: horrors of Hurricane Otis leave devastation for Acapulco’s poorest

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Mexico’s Pacific coast was battered by 165mph winds and torrential rain on 25 October. Thousands lost their homes and many now have too little food or water to survive

In the small hours of Wednesday 25 October, Josefina Maldonado, a grandmother of two in her 60s who lives in the Renacimiento district of Acapulco, watched as the corrugated metal roof of her home flew into the sky, ripped off by 165mph (270km/h) winds. The family home and everything and everyone in it, including two terrified small children, were prey to the torrential rain and the horrors of the hurricane. Most of the furniture, including the beds, was swept away.

“It wasn’t that the wind or the water was stronger. Both were working together,” Maldonado says. “We were up all night trying to save what we could, and the children screamed and cried for hours.”

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Flood warnings issued for south England amid heavy rain after Storm Ciarán

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Met Office issues yellow weather alert as heavy rain forecast to fall on already saturated ground

Heavy rain is forecast across south and south-west of England, with 38 flood warnings and 160 flooding alerts in place days after Storm Ciarán hit the UK.

Although Storm Ciarán has largely eased, the Met Office issued a yellow weather notice on Saturday to last until 11.59pm, stretching from Kent to Cornwall.

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Climate crisis talks resume on ‘loss and damage’ funding for poorest countries

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World leaders will reconvene in Abu Dhabi before UAE’s Cop28 after talks broke down two weeks ago

Governments will meet this weekend for a last-ditch attempt to bridge deep divisions between rich and poor countries over how to get money to vulnerable people afflicted by climate disaster.

Talks over funds for “loss and damage”, which refers to the rescue and rehabilitation of countries and communities experiencing the effects of extreme weather, started in March but broke down in rancour two weeks ago.

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Storm Ciarán kills at least 15 across western Europe as floods strike Italy

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Tuscany is in a state of emergency and three people died when their sailing boat capsized off Portugal

At least six people have died in severe flooding in Tuscany, central Italy and three in Portugal, bringing to 15 the provisional death toll across western Europe from the torrential rain and record winds brought by Storm Ciarán.

Eugenio Giani, the president of Tuscany, announced a state of emergency on Friday, describing the situation as “really very serious”. It had been “a long and complex night for the entire regional civil protection system”, he said.

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Storm Ciarán: schools closed and travel disrupted in UK amid ‘danger to life’

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Amber warnings in place for wind across southern England with north Wales forecast to receive most rain

Winds of more than 70mph and heavy rain have hit parts of south-west and southern England as Storm Ciarán began to disrupt parts of the UK.

Hundreds of schools were shut, roads closed, flights and bus and rail routes affected, with “danger to life” amber warnings in place for wind across southern England.

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More than 4,000 English flood defences ‘almost useless’, analysis finds

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Exclusive: Hundreds of ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ defences are in areas battered by Storm Babet, according to analysis by Unearthed

More than 4,000 of England’s vital flood defences are so damaged they are almost useless, including hundreds in areas battered by Storm Babet.

Nearly 800 critical assets – defined as those where there is a high risk to life and property – were in a “poor” or “very poor” condition in the 10 English counties worst affected by last week’s historic downpours.

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Acapulco death toll rises to 43 after Hurricane Otis batters resort city

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Guerrero state governor says officials assessing damage after unprecedented 165mph storm hit Mexico’s Pacific coast

The death toll from a devastating hurricane that hit the Mexican beach resort of Acapulco last week has risen to 43, the governor of Guerrero state has said.

Evelyn Salgado added that electricity had been restored to 58% of Acapulco and that officials had visited 10,000 families there and the nearby city of Coyuca de Benitez for a census to evaluate damages.

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At least 27 dead after Hurricane Otis smashes into Mexico’s Pacific coast

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The resort city of Acapulco was devastated by the category 5 hurricane, with hundreds of windows blown out and electricity cut

At least 27 people died due to Hurricane Otis and four others were still missing, Mexico’s government said after one of the most powerful storms to hit the country smashed into the Pacific resort city of Acapulco a day before.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the government was working to re-establish power and clean up the devastation wrought by the category 5 hurricane that tore through the southern state of Guerrero, and left Acapulco incommunicado.

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Hurricane Otis rips through Acapulco as communications to city severed

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Powerful category 5 storm hits Mexico’s coast leaving trail of destruction, though full scale of damage remains unclear

Hurricane Otis has smashed through the Mexican resort city of Acapulco as a category 5 storm, wrecking homes, hotels and hospitals, and leaving a trail of destruction, but with communications to the city still severed the full scale of the devastation remained unclear.

As dawn broke on Wednesday, photos and videos posted online showed wrecked buildings and cars partially submerged in floodwaters as authorities in the southern state of Guerrero attempted to take a measure of the damage.

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Tributes paid to three people killed on Friday during Storm Babet

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Police name Cheryl Woods, 61, and Sarha Smith, 40, from south Wales, and Peter Pelling, 61, from Scotland

Tributes have been paid to three people killed in two separate weather-related incidents on Friday at the height of Storm Babet, as new weather warnings were issued on Tuesday.

Yellow weather warnings were put in place for parts of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the south-east of England on Tuesday, with the expectation of heavy rain in some areas that are already flooded.

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