Category Archives: Extreme weather

Weather tracker: Extensive flooding in Japan after ‘unprecedented’ rainfall

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One dead and several missing as ‘life-threatening situation’ declared in earthquake-hit Ishikawa prefecture

Heavy rain caused extensive flooding in central Japan over the weekend, with at least one person reported dead and several more unaccounted for.

Officials said “unprecedented” rainfall generated floods and landslides in Ishikawa prefecture, where a powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake on New Year’s Day killed more than 200 people. The Japan meteorological agency issued its highest-level warning for Ishikawa, advising of a “life-threatening situation”.

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Japan floods: six dead after rain pounds region still recovering from earthquake

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Floods inundated emergency housing built for those who lost their homes in an earthquake that hit Ishikawa on the Sea of Japan coast in January

At least six people have died and 10 others are missing after heavy rain triggered flooding and landslides along a peninsula in Japan that is still recovering from a deadly earthquake at the start of the year.

Public broadcaster NHK and other outlets said on Monday that six people had been confirmed dead, while the Kyodo news agency said more than 100 communities had been cut off by blocked roads after almost two dozen rivers burst their banks.

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Heavy rain triggers landslides and floods in northern Japan

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One person dead and several missing after deluge in Noto, still recovering from 1 January earthquake

Heavy rain pounded Japan’s north-central Noto region, triggering landslides and floods and leaving one person dead and several missing, officials have said.

The deluges caused swollen rivers to overflow, flooding homes and leaving some people stranded in a region still recovering from the deadly 1 January earthquake.

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Weather tracker: Shanghai hit by its ‘strongest typhoon in 75 years’

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More than 400,000 people evacuated, hundreds of flights cancelled and many roads shut due to flooding and winds

Typhoon Bebinca struck the east coast of China this week, making landfall near Shanghai, a city of almost 30 million people, on Monday. Bebinca developed into a typhoon to the east of the southern Japan islands late last week, before traveling westwards through the East China Sea and making landfall in Shanghai at approximately 7.30am local time (00.30BST).

The Chinese media say it is the strongest typhoon to hit Shanghai in 75 years. Wind speeds were reported to have reached just over 150km/h (about 94mph), making it equivalent to a category 1 hurricane, albeit just shy of a category 2 in strength. Before Bebinca, Shanghai had been hit directly by only two typhoons, one in 1949 and another in 2022, as they usually track further south.

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Two missing and 1,000 evacuated as Storm Boris devastates northern Italy

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Meloni government accused of lacking will to confront climate crisis as floods cause havoc in Emilia-Romagna

Two people are missing and about 1,000 people have been evacuated from their homes after devastating floods and landslides hit the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, prompting accusations that Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government lacks the will to confront the climate crisis.

The flooding was brought on by Storm Boris, which had earlier wreaked havoc in central and eastern Europe, killing at least 24 people. Several major cities in central Europe were bracing for swollen rivers to peak on Thursday but defences generally appeared to be holding.

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Storm Boris batters northern Italy bringing severe flooding and landslides

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Homes evacuated in Emilia-Romagna region as pounding rain ‘well beyond the worst forecasts’ sweeps in

Homes are being evacuated in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna as Storm Boris, which has killed at least 24 people in central and eastern Europe since last week, swept into the country, causing severe flooding and landslides.

Pounding rain hit Emilia-Romagna late on Wednesday afternoon and the situation rapidly worsened as night fell.

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Portugal wildfire deaths rise to seven after firefighters trapped in blaze

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More than 50 people injured as 54 fires burn across country amid hot, dry and windy weather

Seven people have been killed and more than 50 injured in wildfires ravaging central and northern Portugal, authorities have said, after three firefighters died on Tuesday when their vehicle was trapped in flames.

Portugal’s civil protection service said 54 wildfires were burning nationwide, mainly in the north, with 5,300 firefighters mobilised. France, Greece, Italy and Spain sent eight water-bombing planes through the EU’s mutual assistance mechanism.

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Central Europe braces for further flooding as swollen rivers continue to rise

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Deadly Storm Boris has dumped up to five times average September rainfall in four days

As swollen rivers continued to rise, volunteers and emergency workers in towns and cities across a swathe of central Europe were reinforcing defences against floods that have killed at least 21 people in four countries.

Storm Boris has dumped up to five times the average September rainfall on parts of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia in four days, submerging entire neighbourhoods and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate.

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More than 200 inmates escape Nigerian prison in aftermath of flooding

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Prisoners fled when the walls of their jail collapsed in the country’s worst flooding in two decades

More than 200 inmates escaped from a prison in north-east Nigeria in the aftermath of the worst flooding there in over two decades, authorities have announced.

There have been 37 deaths in Borno state after parts of its capital, Maiduguri, were overrun by water on 9 September following the collapse of a dam, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). As many as 200,000 others have been displaced. Residents of the city said some areas were still flooded on Monday when the president, Bola Tinubu, visited.

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Death toll reaches 16 as ‘dramatic’ flooding in central Europe continues

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Czech Republic, Poland and Austria fear worst may yet be to come as thousands are evacuated to higher ground

The death toll from torrential rain and flooding in central and eastern Europe has risen to at least 16, with several more people missing, as authorities reported deaths in the Czech Republic, Poland and Austria and warned the worst may be to come.

The number of victims in Poland rose to five after a surgeon returning from work drowned in the south-western town of Nysa, where the hospital was evacuated and patients rescued by raft. Four more people had died in the southern towns of Bielsko-Biała and Lądek-Zdrój, firefighters said.

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Climate scientists troubled by damage from floods ravaging central Europe

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Experts unsurprised at intensity of extreme weather but say damage wreaked shows how unprepared world is

Picturesque towns across central Europe are inundated by dirty flood water after heavy weekend rains turned tranquil streams into raging rivers that wreaked havoc on infrastructure.

The floods have killed at least 15 people and destroyed buildings from Austria to Romania. The destruction comes after devastating floods around the world last week when entire villages were submerged in Myanmar and nearly 300 prisoners escape a collapsed jail in Nigeria, where floods have affected more than 1 million people.

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‘Catastrophe of epic proportions’: seven drown in Europe amid heavy floods

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Storm Boris has caused rivers to burst banks and trapped people in their homes across Austria, Poland and Slovakia

Seven people have drowned in Austria, Poland and Romania and four others are missing in the Czech Republic as Storm Boris continues to lash central and eastern Europe, bringing torrential rain and floods that have forced the evacuation of thousands of people from their homes.

Swathes of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia have been battered by high winds and unusually fierce rains since Thursday.

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Thirteen people including firefighters injured in ‘hellish’ California wildfires

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Several blazes ravage state after record-breaking heatwave last week with temperatures topping 100F

As least 13 people have been injured in three major southern California wildfires that broke out this week during a scorching heatwave. Firefighters battling the blazes, already stretched to the limits by a challenging summer, were among the injured.

The Bridge fire in the Angeles national forest, located north of Glendora, exploded from about 4,000 acres (1,600 hectares) on Tuesday to 34,000 acres that evening, according to the Los Angeles Times.

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Hurricane Francine makes landfall in Louisiana as category 2 storm

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Officials warn of life-threatening storm surge and flooding as evacuation orders in place in some parishes

Francine made landfall in south Louisiana on Wednesday as a category 2 hurricane as officials warned of life-threatening storm surge, flooding and 100mph winds.

There were evacuation orders in some parishes, as communities braced.

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Thai cave boys’ coach trapped again six years later by typhoon floods

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Ekkapol Chantawong, who spent nearly three weeks underground in 2018, forced to spend night on roof of home

The coach of the young Thai footballers who captured the world’s attention when they spent nearly three weeks trapped in a cave has found himself in another watery predicament – stuck on his roof by flash floods.

Ekkapol Chantawong said he was drawing on his 2018 experience with the Wild Boars team to get through the situation at his home in the northern Thai district of Mae Sai.

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Crocodiles and snakes ‘washed into communities’ as flood hits Nigerian zoo

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Park in Borno state says more than 80% of its animals have been killed and urges residents to take precautions

Floods in northern Nigeria have killed more than 80% of the animals in a large zoo housing wildlife from lions and crocodiles to buffalo and ostriches, the facility has said.

“Some deadly animals have been washed away into our communities, like crocodiles and snakes,” the Sanda Kyarimi Park zoo added in a statement on the floods in the northern Borno state, urging residents to take precautions.

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Typhoon Yagi: dozens dead in Vietnam in region’s most powerful storm this year

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Weather agency warns of more floods and landslides after at least 49 people killed with 22 missing

Typhoon Yagi and the landslides and floods it triggered have killed dozens of people in Vietnam, the government said, as authorities on Monday warned of more flooding.

The typhoon was Asia’s most powerful storm this year and made landfall on the country’s north-eastern coast on Saturday. It has disrupted power supplies and telecommunications in several parts of the country, mostly in Quang Ninh and Haiphong, the government said in a statement issued late on Sunday.

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Warm fronts to Y-fronts: Chinese city hit by underwear storm

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Chongqing authorities say cloud seeding to break heatwave did not cause winds that sent laundry flying

It was the talk of the town. After authorities sought to break a long-running heatwave in Chongqing by using cloud-seeding missiles to artificially bring rain, the Chinese megacity was blasted by an unusual weather event – an underwear storm.

Termed “the 9/2 Chongqing underwear crisis”, an unexpected windstorm on Monday brought gusts of up to 76mph (122km/h), scattering people’s laundry from balconies on the city’s high-rises. Douyin, China’s sister app to TikTok, was filled with videos of pants and bras flying through the skies, landing in the street and snagging on trees.

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Weather tracker: Francine looking likely to be next Atlantic hurricane

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An area of low pressure in the Gulf of Mexico is moving landward, and is expected to bring intense rainfall

Francine could soon be the next to be ticked off the list of Atlantic hurricane storm names this week. On Friday, a broad area of low pressure emerged in the Gulf of Mexico, designated as Invest 91L. An “invest” – a shorthand for “investigative area” – refers to a region of atmospheric disturbance, characterised by low pressure and thunderstorms, and is closely monitored for its potential to evolve into a tropical cyclone.

Invest 91L is anticipated to encounter more favourable environmental conditions as it progresses northward over the coming days, meandering along the eastern coasts of Mexico and Texas. The National Hurricane Center has now labelled this as a potential tropical cyclone, and it is expected to reach hurricane status before reaching the Gulf coast of the US. It advises that hurricane and storm surge watches will probably be issued on Monday for coastal parts of Texas and Louisiana, with the impacts expected to be felt from Tuesday night.

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Super Typhoon Yagi hits China’s Hainan, killing two people and forcing 1 million to leave their homes

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Yagi registers as the world’s second-most powerful tropical cyclone this year and has caused power outages in more than 800,000 homes

Asia’s strongest storm this year, Super Typhoon Yagi, made landfall in northern Vietnam on Saturday, the meteorological agency said, killing at least four people after tearing through China’s island of Hainan and the Philippines.

Super Typhoon Yagi hit island districts of north Vietnam at about 1pm (0600 GMT), generating winds of up to 160kph (99mph) near its centre, having lost power from its peak of 234kph (145mph) in Hainan a day earlier.

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