Disasters

"A new report says an estimated 43,000 people died amid Somalia’s longest drought on record last year and half of them likely were children under 5 years old."

"Scientists have delivered a “final warning” on the climate crisis, as rising greenhouse gas emissions push the world to the brink of irrevocable damage that only swift and drastic action can avert. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of the world’s leading climate scientists, set out the final part of its mammoth sixth assessment report on Monday."

"A BNSF train leaving a Western Washington oil refinery with diesel fuel derailed shortly after midnight on March 16 on the Swinomish Reservation about 80 miles north of Seattle."

"Electric utilities spent billions after 2014’s polar vortex to ensure power plants and the grid could handle extreme cold, but this winter it still wasn’t enough".

"The forests around the epicenter of the world’s worst Ebola outbreak are getting patchier. The next pandemic could emerge from the edges around these patches, where wildlife and humans mix."

"The last thing Lukia Akimu remembers is the surge of floodwater that hit her village near Mount Soche this week when Tropical Cyclone Freddy tore through southern Malawi. The next thing she knew, she woke up in hospital, her head wrapped in bandages and her neck in a brace."

"Federal regulators overseeing West Coast fisheries have effectively called off California’s entire 2023 ocean salmon fishing season, in an effort to protect fish populations that have dwindled during the ongoing drought."

"Mandatory water restrictions are being lifted for nearly 7 million people across Southern California following winter storms that have boosted reservoirs and eased the severe shortage that emerged during the state’s driest three-year period on record."

"The devastating Tropical Cyclone Freddy which has ripped through southern Africa in a rare second landfall has killed at least 219 people in Malawi and Mozambique since Saturday night, with the death toll expected to rise."