Category Archives: Natural Disasters

Big Sur wildfire causes evacuations as Harris visits state to tout federal plan

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The Colorado fire grew to more than 2.3 sq miles while, earlier in the day, the vice-president outlined a response to reduce risk

On the day Vice-President Kamala Harris visited California to highlight new funding for fighting wildfires, hundreds of residents in the Big Sur area in the north of the state were told to evacuate due to a new blaze.

The fire broke out on Friday night in a steep canyon, in the rugged mountains above Big Sur. Fanned by wind gusts of up to 50mph, it quickly burned at least 2.3 square miles of brush and redwood trees, said Cecile Juliette, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“The fire lined up with the wind and the terrain and that gave the fire a lot of energy to make a big run,” Juliette said.

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Tonga’s volcano eruption: in pictures

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The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai undersea volcano eruption is thought to be the largest volcanic event in 30 years. Here are a selection of images of what we have seen so far


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Tsunami from Tonga volcano eruption leaves trail of flood damage

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Waves rush over island country while tidal surges are felt by small Pacific neighbours, New Zealand, Australia and US

Tsunami waves caused by an undersea volcano have flooded the Pacific Island country of Tonga, where entire towns have been inundated with water and scientists warn the main island could be blanketed in volcanic ash.

Videos shared on social media after the eruption showed people running for higher ground as the one metre high floods hit coastal areas and made their way farther inland while the sky darkened with ash.

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Filipinos count cost of climate crisis as typhoons get ever more destructive

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The Philippines adds little to global emissions but faces some of its worst effects in extreme weather. Climate justice is needed

A few days before Christmas, Super-typhoon Rai – known locally as Odette – ravaged the Philippines. The morning after the onslaught, on my way back to Iloilo City from San Jose, Antique, I could see the ocean still boiling; houses blown away and great trees knocked down, making roads impassable. The sights were terrifying.

Lost lives continue to climb two weeks on. Vast numbers of buildings were destroyed – from houses to schools; food crops lost to flooding. At first, I did not know what to feel – anger, helplessness? Later, I knew what I wanted: climate justice.

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‘Our house was gone, it was sea and sand’: life on the vanishing coasts – in pictures

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Coastal communities in Mexico, Bangladesh and Somalia are struggling to adapt to the climate crisis. Many people have already lost livelihoods and homes to rising waters

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‘I heard a meow’: Kentucky man finds his cat unscathed in rubble nine days after tornado

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Sonny ‘Hoot’ Gibson thought his mind was playing tricks when the sound emerged from his demolished office building

Nine days after a tornado demolished his three-story office building in downtown Mayfield, Kentucky, Sonny “Hoot” Gibson was standing in the rubble when he thought he heard a faint meow.

It instantly gave him hope that his office cat, Madix, who hadn’t been seen since before the storms hit, was alive. Gibson said he had tried to find the black cat with yellow eyes who liked to greet customers of his rental business, but he had given up after a few days.

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Seconds before a 6.2 earthquake rattled California, phones got a vital warning

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Half a million phones received emergency alerts thanks to system offering a few seconds to take cover

In the moments before a 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck the northern California coast on Monday, roughly half a million phones began to buzz. An early-alert system managed by the US Geological Survey sent warnings out before the ground started to shake, giving residents in the sparsely populated area vital time to take cover.

The earthquake brought significant shaking but minimal damage in Humboldt county, about 210 miles north-west of San Francisco, and officials said it was an excellent test of the alert-system. It was the largest magnitude quake that’s occurred since the system, known as ShakeAlert, was officially rolled out across the west coast.

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Philippines Typhoon Rai death toll reaches 375 as desperate survivors plead for supplies

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Calls for urgent aid as some residents remain without drinking water and food in the aftermath of Typhoon Rai

The death toll from the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year has surged to 375 , as desperate survivors pleaded for urgent supplies of drinking water and food.

The Philippine Red Cross reported “complete carnage” in coastal areas after Super Typhoon Rai left homes, hospitals and schools “ripped to shreds”.

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Drone footage reveals damage from Indonesia’s Mount Semeru volcano eruption – video

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Drone footage has captured some of the devastation following the eruption of Mount Semeru on the Indonesian island of Java. Dozens of people have been killed and thousands remain displaced. The volcano continues to spew hot gas and ash, hampering rescue efforts

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US wildfires have killed nearly 20% of world’s giant sequoias in two years

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Blazes in western US have hit thousands of Earth’s largest trees, once considered almost fire-proof

Lightning-sparked wildfires killed thousands of giant sequoias this year, adding to a staggering two-year death toll that accounts for up to nearly a fifth of Earth’s largest trees, officials said on Friday.

Fires in Sequoia national park and the surrounding national forest that also bears the trees’ name tore through more than a third of groves in California and torched an estimated 2,261 to 3,637 sequoias. Fires in the same area last year killed an unprecedented 7,500 to 10,400 of the 75,000 trees.

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18,000 people stranded after floods and landslides in British Columbia – video

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Authorities and emergency crews in Canada are trying to reach 18,000 people stranded by major floods and landslides. The province of British Columbia declared a state of emergency with concerns over further falls in coming days. Some grocery store shelves in affected areas have also been stripped bare while floods and mudslides destroyed roads, houses and bridges, hampering rescue efforts

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Canada floods: 18,000 people still stranded in ‘terrible, terrible disaster’

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Alarm grows about climate change in British Columbia after summer wildfires wiped out vegetation that could have slowed flooding

Emergency crews in western Canada were still trying to reach some 18,000 people stranded by landslides and struggling to find food among bare grocery store shelves after devastating flooding.

With communities in the region braced for more torrential rain in already inundated areas next week , the premier of British Columbia province declared an emergency and gave an emotional address in a press conference on Thursday.

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Pacific north-west storm wreaks havoc, with one dead and Vancouver cut off

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Fears death toll will rise after record rainfall destroys highways and leaves tens of thousands in the US and Canada without power

At least one person has been killed and several more are feared dead after a huge storm hit the Pacific north-west, destroying highways and leaving tens of thousands of people in Canada and the US without power.

Canada’s largest port was cut off by flood waters, as emergency crews in British Columbia announced on Tuesday that at least 10 vehicles had been swept off a highway during a landslide.

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At least four buildings on La Palma destroyed by volcano

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Buildings near the crater on the Spanish island were engulfed by lava on Saturday morning

Buildings near the volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma were engulfed by rivers of lava early on Saturday, with the drama of the red-hot eruption intensified by the spectacle of flashes of lightning.

The magma destroyed at least four buildings in the village of Callejon de la Gata, witnesses said.

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‘Volcanoes are life’: how the ocean is enriched by eruptions devastating on land

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Lava is destroying much of La Palma but the last eruption in the Canaries appears to have ‘fertilised’ the surrounding seas

The eruption of the volcano on La Palma in the Canary Islands is a vivid reminder of the destructive power of nature but, as it lays waste all before it on land, for marine life it is likely to be a blessing.

When the lava reached the sea near the La Palma marine reserve on Tuesday night, every marine organism that was unable to swim out of danger was instantly killed. However, unlike on land, which lava renders lifeless for decades (and with forest not returning for more than a century), marine life returns quickly and in better shape, research shows.

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La Palma volcano: Lava spews towards sea after further eruptions – video

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Further eruptions from Cumbre Vieja volcano  on the Canary Island of La Palma have blown open two more fissures, sending molten rock spewing towards the sea.

Since Cumbre Vieja began erupting on 19 September, activity has "intensified" with earthquakes  registered near the active volcano. 

Residents have been ordered to stay indoors to avoid worsening air quality, or to evacuate from nearby towns

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Lava continues to erupt from volcano on Spanish island of La Palma – video

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Lava continued to erupt from a volcano in La Palma on Tuesday morning. The volcano, which has already caused widespread devastation, burying more than 500 buildings and displacing more than 6,000 people since last week, was calmer on Monday. But scientists have warned it is too early to say the eruption has finished. The plume of ash smoke that began on 19 September stopped in the early hours of Monday, only to resume two hours later

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‘A forgotten disaster’: earthquake-hit Haitians left to fend for themselves

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With rural areas of the country left to suffer, aid workers fear funds are drying up as global compassion fatigue sets in

David Nazaire, a 45-year-old coffee farmer from Beaumont, a small village in rural southern Haiti, was getting ready to harvest when an earthquake struck his home and livelihood. Much of the farming infrastructure – as well as nearby homes, schools and churches – was damaged or completely destroyed. A month later, he and thousands of rural Haitians – those most severely affected by the tremor – are still waiting for relief, and are not expecting it to arrive soon.

“The earthquake didn’t destroy our crops, but it did take everything else,” Nazaire says, outside a neighbour’s house, now a pile of rubble beneath plastic roof tiles supported by the remnants of concrete walls. “We were just getting ready to harvest, but that’s lost now.”

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‘I don’t see my mum’: Haiti’s earthquake leaves new generation of orphans

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The number of children without carers is still not known, leaving them prey to gangs and abuse

Lilian, six years old and alone, still asks when her mother will return from the market on the edge of Les Cayes in southern Haiti.

When last month’s earthquake struck, Lilian was at home, occasionally checked on by her neighbours as her mother, Genieve, was selling fruit a few blocks away. When the ground began to convulse, the market partly collapsed. Genieve was hit by falling concrete and buried under rubble. Her death has left Lilian without anyone to care for her.

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Hurricane Ida barrels down on Louisiana amid warnings of ‘life-altering storm’

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Tens of thousands in US face evacuation orders as storm makes first landfall in Cuba, sparking fears of floods and mudslides

Hurricane Ida rapidly gained strength on Friday evening as communities in southern Louisiana braced for a major category 4 storm with sustained winds of about 140mph and tens of thousands of residents were placed under mandatory evacuation orders.

The hurricane is due to make landfall in the US on Sunday, with officials warning of a “life-altering storm”. The cities of New Orleans and Lafayette, as well as the state capital, Baton Rouge, are under threat from Ida, which is forecast to reach the US somewhere between the parishes of Terrebone and St Mary, slightly west of New Orleans.

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