Worldcrunch
As climate threats increase, thousands of communities become at risk of floods and other natural disasters. Americans have witnessed deadly flooding this month in Texas, New Jersey and New York. Here, we look at those communities around the world that have been relocated after a disaster, or are thinking of changing location to avoid further risks.
Updated July 23, 2024 at 11:50 a.m. Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. on this day in 2005. What was Hurricane Katrina? Hurricane Katrina was a Category 3 hurricane at the time of its landfall, with sustained winds of around 125 miles per hour (200 kilometers per hour). It was […]
A closer look at the science shows there are many factors that contribute to weather-related emergencies. It is important to raise climate change awareness, but there’s a risk in overstating its role in every natural disaster.
Bad American weather is making news again, a week after a chunk of the country was digging out from record blizzards.
Residents near the Caribbean coast of Honduras have been witness to an unlikely, and much welcome, event: fish that seem to arrive from the skies. Or maybe from somewhere else?
BELGIUM ARRESTS TWO TERROR SUSPECTS Belgian police have arrested two suspected terrorists who were reportedly planning New Year’s Eve attacks on “symbolic targets” in Brussels, newspaper Le Soir reports. The arrests came Sunday and Monday after police raids in the provinces of Brabant and Liège. Police said they hadn’t found any weapons or explosives during […]
At least four people have been killed in Texas over the past three days as the state has been hit by a series of storms. The Houston Chronicle described Wednesday what it called a region “on weather steroids.” In Mexico, at least 13 people were also killed as a tornado struck the border town of […]
EU EMERGENCY MIGRANT SUMMIT European Union leaders arrived in Brussels for an emergency summit Thursday on the migration crisis, following Europe’s worst maritime disaster since World War II last weekend that killed hundreds of would-be immigrants in the Mediterranean Sea. There is a working list of 10 objectives that was put together earlier this week […]
ISIS LOSES LONG KOBANI BATTLEAfter more than four months of intense fighting, Kurdish fighters have taken control of the Syrian town of Kobani on the Turkish border and have driven out ISIS fighters, though these still occupy important areas outside the town, Reuters reports. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 1,600 […]
Does the classification of tropical storms need changing? With sustained winds of 195 miles per hour, and gusts close to 235 mph, the super typhoon Haiyan, which left a trail of destruction in the Philippines and beyond, was the most powerful cyclone to make landfall in recent history. So much so in fact that some […]
AP, BBC Worldcrunch MANILA – The season’s most powerful typhoon hit the north of the Philippine islands early Monday morning, leaving one person dead, with at least 23 others missing, according to the Associated Press. Typhoon Utor brought winds of up to 130 mph and torrential rains to the country’s main island of Luzon, toppling […]
This week’s tornadoes that flattened entire neighborhoods in Oklahoma, and elsewhere in the United States Midwest, remind us again of the potential magnitude of nature’s wrath. In 1931, the great flood of China’s Yellow and Yang-Tse rivers led to the death of about 4,000,000 people from drowning, disease and starvation. More recently, Haiti suffered a […]
AP, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK TIMES, REUTERS Worldcrunch NEW YORK– Even before the first flake has fallen, the tabloid New York Daily News had already declared Friday that winter storm Nemo was “a pain in the butt.” With a major blizzard predicted to begin later in the day, Newark, Boston’s Logan and New […]
PORT-AU-PRINCE – What’s left of Haiti’s dreams of reconstruction? Three years after the earthquake that devastated the country – one of the world’s poorest – 360,000 people are still living in displaced person camps and shantytowns. The cholera epidemic is spreading and more than 80% of the population is still living below the poverty line. […]
THE CARIBBEAN JOURNAL, CNN, NBC, AP (USA), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch Haiti is pleading for international help in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, as more than a million Haitians risk being victims of food shortages. The Caribbean Journal reports that Johan Peleman, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ […]
LE NOUVELLISTE (Haiti), CNN, THE MIAMI HERALD (US) Worldcrunch Hurricane Sandy has torn across the Caribbean, leaving 21 people dead in its wake, and is expected to make landfall in New England early next week. Forecasters warned that the late-season storm could wreak havoc along America’s east coast, making landfall sometime before Halloween, provoking many […]
DIE WELT (Germany) Worldcrunch Predicting earthquakes, floods, droughts and other assorted disasters is hardly an exact science. Still, as the just published 2012 WorldRiskReport notes, just how badly natural catastrophes hit comes down to how well prepared is the country’s government to respond. In a risk index that includes 173 countries, experts of the Bonn-based […]
CNN, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER (US), REUTERS Worldcrunch Residents in New Orleans are rushing to complete last-minute preparations, bracing themselves for Tropical Storm Isaac, which will begin to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast late Tuesday, as forecasters set to upgrade it to Hurricane status. The Tropical Storm is gaining strength, poised to become a “robust” hurricane […]
CNN, WASHINGTON POST, USA TODAY (USA), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch Photo: Diana Nyad MIAMI – US Swimmer Diana Nyad ended her bid to cross from Cuba to Florida after suffering severe jellyfish stings, reports CNN. The endurance swimmer, who will turn 63 on Wednesday, was pulled from the water early Tuesday morning, reports CNN. A […]
CHINA METEOROLOGICAL ADMINISTRATION, CHINA DAILY, XINHUA (China) SHANGHAI – Typhoon Haikui ploughed into China’s eastern coast on Wednesday morning, knocking down buildings, cutting off power, disrupting train and airline services and forcing authorities to relocate millions of people. The winds were at “severe typhoon” strength when Haikui made landfall in the province of Zhejiang, about […]