Disasters and Emergencies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      In Hawaii, a Sense of Alertness Without Panic Ahead of Tropical Storm Hone

      by

      Although the storm is not expected to pass directly over the Big Island, forecasters warned of threats including flooding and damaging winds.Debbie Arita, an office manager at a supermarket in Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii, took stock of the conditions. Tropical Storm Hone was approaching the region, but the scene on Friday was far from chaotic — no frantic rush for supplies, no desperate boarding up of windows.To Ms. Arita, who said she has been through her fair share of hurricanes and tsunamis, the prevailing mood seemed to be alertness without anxiousness.“There’s no sense of panic here,” she said.Hone (pronounced ho-NAY) is expected to deliver a glancing blow to Hawaii as it passes near or south of the Big Island late Saturday into early Sunday. Forecasters have warned of the potential for damaging winds, life-threatening surf and flash floods.Officials and residents largely said they were preparing, but not with alarm. While a landfall of a named storm on Hawaii is rare, storms frequently come close enough to affect the islands’ weather. Mitch Roth, the mayor of Hawaii County, which covers the Big Island, wants residents to remain watchful. “We want people to be prepared for any kind of hazard,” Mr. Roth said. In August 2018, Hurricane Lane drenched the Big Island with 58 inches of rainfall, damaged over 100 buildings and killed one person — despite the eye of the storm passing over 100 miles south of the state.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Deadly Landslides in India Made Worse by Climate Change, Study Finds

      by

      Extreme rainfall made 10 percent heavier by human-caused climate change triggered landslides that killed hundreds, according to a new study.A sudden burst of rainfall on July 30 caused a cascade of landslides that buried hundreds of people in the mountainous Kerala region of southern India.That downpour was 10 percent heavier because of human-caused climate change, according to a study by World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists who quantify how climate change can influence extreme weather. Nearly six inches, or 150 millimeters, of rain fell on soils already highly saturated from two months of monsoon and marked the third highest single-day rain event on record for India.“The devastation in northern Kerala is concerning not only because of the difficult humanitarian situation faced by thousands today, but also because this disaster occurred in a continually warming world,” said Maja Vahlberg, a climate risk consultant at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. “The increase in climate-change-driven rainfall found in this study is likely to increase the number of landslides that could be triggered in the future.”In a state that is highly prone to landslides, the Wayanad district is considered the riskiest part. As of Tuesday, at least 231 people had died and 100 remained missing.The Kerala landslides were the second extreme landslide event in July, following one in Ethiopia that killed 257 people. July was the second-worst month on record, after July 2019, with 95 landslide events that caused 1,167 fatalities, according to data maintained by Dave Petley, the vice-chancellor of the University of Hull. Together, they caused roughly one-third of the more than 3,600 deaths resulting from some 429 fatal landslides recorded this year, Dr. Petley said in an email.Already, 2024 is an outlier, Dr. Petley posted to The Landslide Blog on Tuesday. He wrote that he could “only speculate on the likely underlying reasons for this very high incidence of fatal landslides,” but “the most likely cause continues to be the exceptionally high global surface temperatures, and the resultant increase in high intensity rainfall events.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Parts of Florida Under State of Emergency as Storm Moves Toward the Gulf

      by

      The storm, which could become Tropical Storm Debby, is expected to bring significant amounts of rain to the coast.The governor of Florida declared a state of emergency on Thursday as a tropical system moved toward the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to bring heavy rain, gusty winds and the potential for flash flooding.Known currently as Invest 97L, the storm could become Debby if it organizes itself into an official tropical storm. (“Invest” is meteorological shorthand for “investigative area.”)The U.S. National Weather Service warned that heavy rains could cause areas of flash flooding across Florida, Cuba and the Bahamas through the weekend.Florida braces for what could be a ‘major disaster.’With heavy rainfall of at least 12 inches expected over the next seven days, Florida is bracing for the threat of flooding, along with gusty winds and erosion. On Thursday night, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in more than 50 counties, which gives emergency managers the authority to allocate resources to respond to the fallout of the extreme weather.

      Five-day precipitation forecast

      1

      2

      3

      5

      10+ inches

      Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
      Notes:

       Values are shown only for the contiguous United States and are in inches of water or the equivalent amount of melted snow and ice.
      By Zach Levitt, Bea Malsky, Martín González Gómez and Madison Dong

      The order covers Orange County and Osceola County, and travel could be disrupted for the throngs of summer visitors who go to Orlando and the theme parks at Universal Studios Florida and Walt Disney World.Water tables in some areas are already saturated, the governor said, and the incoming rainfall “will cause significant river flooding that may last for several weeks.” The storm could damage “major interstates and roadways, bridges, airports, schools, hospitals, power grids and other critical infrastructure,” Mr. DeSantis said. It was expected to also cause widespread power outages from downed trees and power lines.The National Hurricane Center said that an aircraft would investigate the storm on Friday if needed, and it warned officials in Cuba and the Bahamas to monitor its progress.Specialists at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, which falls under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, tracking Hurricane Beryl in July.Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 63 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Landslides Kill 150 in Ethiopia

      by

      A waterlogged hillside above a village gave way, burying several houses in mud. Neighbors and rescue workers who had rushed to help were hit by a second slide.More than 150 people were killed in southwestern Ethiopia on Monday after a landslide flattened several houses in a village following days of heavy rain, and neighbors who rushed to dig out those buried under the mud were hit with a second landslide about an hour later.The first landslide struck the village in the Geze district between 8:30 and 9 a.m. on Monday, said Habtamu Fetena, who heads the local government’s emergency response. Nearly 300 people from two neighboring villages ran to the area to help and began digging through the mud by hand.Then about an hour later, without warning, more mud slid down the hillside above the village, and killed many of those trying to help their neighbors.“They had no clue that the land they were standing on was about to swallow them,” Mr. Fetana said.The first landslide killed entire families as mud rolled down the hillside, officials said. Teachers and health care workers were among those killed in the second landslide. Among those killed in the second landslide was the local administrative leader, who had also rushed to the scene. Most of those who have died were men, but pregnant women and children were also among the dead, Mr. Fetana said.A man uses his hands to search for survivors and victims of the landslide.Isayas Churga/Gofa Zone Government Communication Affairs Department, via Associated PressThe death toll was expected to rise as more victims were pulled from the mud. As of Tuesday afternoon, just 10 people had been pulled alive from the landslide, officials said.The largely rural area had experienced several days of heavy rain, hampering rescue efforts and saturating the land, causing multiple landslides.The devastated village lies in a region that is increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In recent years, East Africa has experienced increasingly extreme weather, including long droughts followed by intense storms, according to the United Nations. A third of the countries considered most susceptible to the risks of climate change are in southern and eastern Africa.The area where the landslides occurred is impossible to reach by heavy machinery, so villagers and rescue workers were forced to dig by hand. Images from the scene showed a gash in the green hillside where the mud slid down, with rescue workers, knee-deep in the mud, using hoes and shovels, or their bare hands, to search for victims.The area has seen disasters like this before, another local administrator, Dagmawi Ayele, told the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation. While some villages were moved after previous disasters, landslides were now occurring in unexpected regions, he added.A video released by the local government shows survivors of the landslide in southwestern Ethiopia.Gofa Zone Government Communication Affairs Department, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Dozens Dead or Missing After China Highway Collapse

      by

      It was the second such rain-related disaster in less than three months, as extreme weather challenges the country’s extensive network of newly built expressways.At least a dozen people were killed and many more remained missing on Saturday after part of a highway bridge collapsed Friday night amid heavy rain in western China. It was the second deadly episode in the country in less than three months involving the failure of a stretch of highway.State media reported early Saturday afternoon that 12 bodies and seven vehicles had been found, and that one person had been rescued. Eighteen vehicles and 31 people were still missing.A photograph released by the official Xinhua news agency on Saturday showed how a bridge in one direction of the highway had snapped. A section of it was folded downward, nearly perpendicular, into a churning, muddy river. A separate bridge that supported traffic in the other direction remained standing.The head of the Ministry of Emergency Management, Wang Xiangxi, went to the site Saturday morning and was overseeing a rescue effort that involved 869 people, 93 vehicles, 41 drones, 20 boats and a sonar system, according to the authorities.Both Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, and Premier Li Qiang, the country’s second-highest leader, ordered all-out rescue efforts.They had issued similar instructions after the previous disaster, which occurred on May 1 also amid heavy rain. At least 48 people died after a section of expressway running along the side of a hill in southeastern China gave way, apparently because a landslide began underneath it. Mr. Xi had ordered that local governments across China pay more attention to identifying and dealing with such risks.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      ‘Hanging by a Thread’: U.N. Chief Warns of Missing a Key Climate Target

      by

      His comments came as the world body’s weather agency said it expected Earth to soon surpass the record high temperatures experienced in 2023.With the planet in the grips of its highest temperatures in more than 100,000 years, scientists with the United Nations weather agency have crunched the numbers and come to a stark conclusion: More record-hot years are all but inevitable.In the next five years, there’s a nearly 90 percent chance Earth will set yet another record for its warmest year, surpassing the scorching highs experienced in 2023, the World Meteorological Organization said in a report Wednesday.The chances are almost as great that, in at least one of these five calendar years, the average global temperature will be 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, higher than it was at the dawn of the industrial age. That’s the level of warming that countries set out to avoid under the 2015 Paris Agreement.“The target of limiting long-term global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is hanging by a thread,” the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, said in a speech in New York City on Wednesday. He called for urgent action in a number of areas, including slashing carbon dioxide emissions and adopting renewable energy, helping poor countries finance their climate plans, and clamping down on the fossil fuel industry.On the last subject, Mr. Guterres reiterated past exhortations to end taxpayer subsidies for oil and gas. But he also turned his attention to a new target: He urged governments to ban advertising by fossil-fuel companies, comparing oil and coal producers to the tobacco industry, which faces advertising restrictions worldwide. And he urged the news media and tech companies to stop displaying their ads.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 75 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Art and the Power to Heal

      by

      Artists and community organizations around the world are increasingly turning to art to create positive social change.Using her arms as a makeshift clapboard, a Sudanese woman in a black hijab and black-and-white caftan clapped her hands together, signaling the beginning of the rehearsal. The other amateur Thespians, wearing comic stick-on mustaches, moved to their marks, improvising a scene in a women’s beauty salon where one patron’s hair is accidentally dyed blue.As the scene ended, all the women were in hysterics, ribbing each other over how they could better play their parts next time. Scenes like this are common at the Kuluhenna Creative Workshop, which is held at a community clubhouse on the outskirts of this Yorkshire city. The workshop is open to all local women, but with a focus on immigrant communities, including refugees and asylum seekers.The 90-minute class, which the Mafwa Theater has held since 2019, is a happy space. Each week, some 15 women gather to tell stories, dance, act and gossip. They are provided with bus passes, a play area for their young children and an on-site health worker in case any of the women want to talk.Eman Elsayed, a mother of three originally from Egypt, said before she joined the workshop in 2020, she was “depressed, isolated and fed up” with her life in Leeds. But eventually, especially after joining Mafwa Theater’s associate artists program in 2021, she felt her life change.“Art, it’s a magic wand,” said Elsayed, who now has a paid job doing community outreach for the program. “But you need to believe, and you need to take the time to see what it will do.”Mafwa’s project is just one example of a larger trend — as more and more groups and individuals worldwide are using the arts to empower, unite and even help heal people who have suffered trauma, from war and natural disaster, or discrimination, poverty and displacement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 50 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Tornado Devastates Arkansas Town

      by

      Rogers, Ark., was one of many places hit hard by the rash of storms over Memorial Day weekend across the South.Melisa Swearingen woke up early on Sunday morning as a tornado bore down on her home in the northwestern corner of Arkansas. As she raced down the stairs with her toddler, she looked out the window and saw a 40-foot tree falling toward the house.“The whole house was shaking like a roller coaster,” Ms. Swearingen said in an interview outside her home. “I thought, This was it.”But the tree smashed through a room above the family’s garage, giving her time to gather her 7-year-old son. As another tree crushed the other side of the home, she, her husband and their children huddled in a first-floor bedroom. “I thought the house would be torn open and we’d get suctioned up,” Ms. Swearingen, 35, said.Nearby, Byron Copeland, 38, had sent his wife, their three children and the family dogs to the basement, while he monitored the storm. Then came the terrifying booms of exploding electrical transformers. “I ran toward the basement like a little girl,” Mr. Copeland said. As they waited for the weather to pass, he said, the family sang the lullaby “Jesus Loves Me.”The Swearingens and the Copelands were among the millions of families whose lives were upended by the rash of tornadoes that ravaged parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Kentucky over Memorial Day weekend. At least 23 people were killed, including eight people in Arkansas. Melisa Swearingen, second from left, stood amid debris being removed from her front yard on Monday.Melyssa St. Michael for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More