Second devastating hurricane in two weeks lashes fragile nation and leaves villages submerged
Nery Benitez was working shifts as a baggage handler at San Pedro Sula’s airport when it got flooded by Hurricane Eta. This week it was inundated again as Hurricane Iota struck.
“I had gone seven months without work and three days after I got called back this flooding happened,” the 50-year-old said. “We have family and children. How are we going to feed them?”
Continue reading...The storm caused swollen rivers to burst their banks, flipped roofs on to streets, and killed at least nine people across the region
Continue reading...Hurricane Iota has made landfall on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, threatening catastrophic damage. Huge waves crashed into the Colombian island of San Andrés as the storm churned through the region, lashing Nicaragua with winds of up to 155mph (250kmh).
The latest storm hit just two weeks after Hurricane Eta, which caused havoc across the same parts of Central America. The presidents of Honduras and Guatemala have called on wealthier countries to help deal with the cost of the climate crisis
• This video was amended on 17 November 2020 to remove unrelated footage that had been mistakenly included in a report by the Associated Press
Coastguard footage shows extensive flooding triggered by the typhoon in the northern Isabela province. Dozens of people were killed and thousands were rescued from fast-flowing floodwater, as the Magat Dam released water in the region.
Though waters have mostly receded since Wednesday, rescue teams continued to help people in places where waters remained high
Continue reading...Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala worst affected with scores dead and more than 200,000 people evacuated from their homes
Central America is braced for further storms this weekend as the region reels from the devastation caused by Hurricane Eta, the Red Cross has warned.
Forecasters believe a weather front forming in the Caribbean has a 90% chance of becoming a cyclone, making it the 30th named Atlantic storm of 2020 in a record-breaking hurricane season, shattering the previous worst year of 28 storms in 2005.
Continue reading...Typhoon Vamco has killed at least seven people and unleashed some of the worst flooding in years in the Philippines’ capital, Manila
Continue reading...Torrential rains from Typhoon Vamco have lashed the Philippines' main Luzon Island, causing flooding and widespread damage.
People sought shelter on higher ground due to flash floods on Thursday, and have been asked to move to evacuation centres in the capital, Manila, despite fears of the spread of Covid-19.
Vamco is the 21st such storm to hit the Philippines this year, following close after Super typhoon Goni which devastated the east of the nation in early November
Continue reading...Flooding left thousands trapped for days without food or water and death toll may never be known
Across a sea of putrid mud a metre or so deep, Marvin Argueta pointed to the remnants of what a week ago was his home on the banks of the Chamelecón River. He had lost everything – but he still considers himself lucky.
“If we hadn’t got out in time, we all would have died,” said Argueta, 22, who along with his wife and four children abandoned their house when the flood waters reached waist height in the middle of the night. “A friend of mine lost his entire family.”
Continue reading...Rescuers reach remote mountain village in Guatemala where people were buried in their homes
The death toll from the calamitous Storm Eta in Central America soared on Friday after the Guatemalan military reached a remote mountainous village where torrential rains had triggered devastating mudslides, killing about 100 people.
Many of the dead were buried in their homes in the remote village of Quejá in the central region of Alta Verapaz, where about 150 houses had been swallowed by mudslides, said army spokesman Rubén Téllez.
Continue reading...Storm Eta has unleashed torrential rain, causing catastrophic landslides and flooding in Central America. Dozens of people have been killed and more than 300,000 displaced after raging torrents tore through cities.
Eta, one of the fiercest storms to hit Central America in years, struck Nicaragua as a category 4 hurricane on Tuesday with 150mph (241kph) winds, before weakening as it moved inland and into neighbouring Honduras
Continue reading...Volcanic mudflows bury houses before powerful winds weaken as storm blows towards Manila
A powerful super typhoon has slammed into the eastern Philippines, killing at least 10 people and causing volcanic mudflows to bury houses before weakening as it blew towards Manila, where the capital’s main airport was shut down, according to officials.
Typhoon Goni hit the island province of Catanduanes at dawn on Sunday with sustained winds of 140mph (225km/h) and gusts of 174mph. It was heading west towards densely populated regions, including Manila, and rain-soaked provinces still recovering from a typhoon last week that left at least 22 people dead.
Continue reading...System with 265km/h winds is expected to make landfall on Sunday on main island of Luzon, home to Manila
Philippine officials have ordered evacuation of thousands of residents in the southern part of the main Luzon island as a category-5 storm that is the world’s strongest this year approaches.
Typhoon Goni, with 215km/h (133 mph) sustained winds and gusts of up to 265km/h (164 mph), will make landfall on Sunday as the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines since Haiyan, which killed more than 6,300 people in 2013.
Continue reading...At least 15 already confirmed dead in central Quang Nam province following torrential rains brought by strongest storm in decades
Rescue teams in Vietnam have used heavy machinery to search for survivors buried under landslides triggered by torrential rains from Typhoon Molave, one of the strongest typhoons to hit the region for decades, the government said.
The landslides, which hit remote areas in the central province of Quang Nam a day earlier, have killed at least 15 and 38 people are missing with rescue efforts hampered by bad weather at the tail end of the storm, the government said.
Continue reading...Leaded petrol, acid rain, CFCs … the last 50 years of environmental action have shown how civil society can force governments and business to change
Leaflets printed on “rather grotty” blue paper. That is how Janet Alty will always remember one of the most successful environment campaigns of modern times: the movement to ban lead in petrol.
There were the leaflets she wrote to warn parents at school gates of the dangers, leaflets to persuade voters and politicians, leaflets to drown out the industry voices saying – falsely – there was nothing to worry about.
Continue reading...Country faces more than 5,000 fires, with yellow smoke reaching the capital as neighbouring Brazil and Argentina face blazes
Devastating wildfires have broken out across across Paraguay, as drought and record high temperatures continue to exacerbate blazes across South America.
A total of 5,231 individual wildfires broke out across the country on 1 October – up 3,000 on the previous day. Most of were concentrated in the arid Chaco region in the west of the country, but thick yellow smoke had reached as far as the capital, Asunción.
Continue reading...Triple-digit temperatures could spark new fires just a few weeks after a record heatwave
California is bracing for another dangerously warm weekend, with dry winds, parched vegetation, and triple-digit temperatures threatening to ignite new fires and complicating containment efforts in an embattled state.
With only a few weeks’ reprieve after a record heatwave in early September, firefighters have made progress in containing the dozens of blazes tearing across the region. But fatigued crews – many of whom have spent weeks fighting on the frontline – are preparing for a potentially rough week ahead.
Continue reading...Extreme weather, locust invasions and violence have forced people to flee their homes
Millions of people were uprooted from their homes by conflict, violence and natural disasters in the first six months of this year, research has found.
Nearly 15m new internal displacements were recorded in more than 120 countries between January and June by the Swiss-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
Continue reading...Schoolchildren to protest on Friday in first such action since coronavirus pandemic struck
Schoolchildren around the world are being urged to go on strike to protest against a lack of action on the climate crisis.
Children and their supporters are invited to take to the streets on Friday, if it is safe to do so, or to go online with their protests “in whatever way suits you best”, according to the organisers.
Continue reading...Two dead, one missing and nearly a thousand rescued as floods damage Thessaly
After pounding parts of western and central Greece meteorologists have predicted a rare Mediterranean hurricane is headed south towards the island of Crete.
Authorities struggling to contain the impact of the cyclone – a so-called medicane, named Ianos – said two people had died and at least one was missing as torrential rain and gale-force winds wielded a trail of destruction.
Continue reading...So many powerful storms have formed over the Atlantic this year that for only the second time, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) has run out of names, meaning it is now naming tropical storms and hurricanes with letters from the Greek alphabet.
There are 21 names available each year. The list ends with those beginning with W and excludes Q, U, X, Y and Z. Once that list is exhausted, the nomenclature system switches to the Greek alphabet.
Continue reading...