Page 22 - Natural Disasters

Joshimath, surrounding areas sink by 2.5 inch every year, finds study

Dehradun-based Indian Institute of Remote Sensing used satellite images collected between July 2020 and March 2022 to find that the entire region is gradually sinking

Insured losses hit $120 billion as extreme weather upends industry norms

Insured losses of more than $100 billion a year are the new normal. That's a major departure from industry norms of less than two decades ago

PMO holds high-level review meeting on situation in Uttarakhand's Joshimath

Central government agencies and experts are assisting Uttarakhand to prepare short, medium and long term plans to deal with the Joshimath situation, officials said on Sunday after the Prime Minister's Office held a high-level review meeting. One team of the National Disaster Response Force and four teams of the State Disaster Response Force have already reached Joshimath, where people are in alarm due to land subsidence and cracks have developed in hundreds of houses. Affected families are being shifted to safe locations, officials said. The Border Management secretary and members of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) will visit Uttarakhand on Monday and assess the situation A team of experts from NDMA, National Institute of Disaster Management, Geological Survey of India, IIT Roorkee, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, National Institute of Hydrology and Central Building Research Institute will study the situations and give recommendations, they said. During the

Some areas of Uttarakhand's Joshimath declared disaster-affected

Uttarakhand government declared some areas of Joshimath as disaster-affected areas, based on recommendations of the experts who had been surveying the houses to identify the causes of the landslides

Joshimath crisis: 11 more families moved to safe locations, say officials

Eleven more families in Joshimath were moved to safe locations on Saturday as the number of houses developing cracks in the sinking town rose to 603, officials said. The number of families who have so far been evacuated stands at 65 with another 11 moving to temporary relief camps on Saturday from houses that had developed cracks, Chamoli district disaster management officer N K Joshi said. Uttrakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami visited Joshimath on Saturday to assess the situation on the ground, a day after he directed immediate evacuation of around 600 affected families. The chief minister also visited houses in which huge cracks have appeared on the walls and ceilings.

Final death toll in Malaysia's Selangor campsite landslide stands at 31

The final victim of last week's landslide in Malaysia has been recovered, leaving the final death toll at 31, the authorities have said

10 villages cut off due to heavy landslide in Nilgiris district in TN

Ten villages around Kukkalthorai near here in Nilgiris district were cut off from main stream on Thursday, following heavy landslide on Kothagiri road, officials said. The roads connecting the 10 villages with towns were completely buried in the debris, totally paralysing the vehicular movement in the villages, coming under Udhagamandalam Panchayat, they said. Tea gardens and agricultural lands in and around Kothagiri were also washed away due to the landslide spread over 200 metres near Uyilhatti falls, affecting 10 villages, they added. Preliminary inquiry revealed that stagnation of water in farm lands, construction of water tanks and ponds, as the main reason for the landslide, the official sources said. Officials and workers from highway department, district administration, police and fire and rescue department rushed to the spot to assist the clearing of the debris. However, the operations were affected fearing possibility of landslide while removing the debris, they sai

16 dead, 17 missing after landslide hits Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur

Seven people have been hospitalised with injuries and rescuers were searching for the estimated 17 missing people

Massive US storm brings tornadoes to South, areas under blizzard threat

A massive storm blowing across the country spawned tornadoes that wrecked homes and injured a handful of people in parts of Oklahoma and Texas, including the Dallas-Fort Worth area, as much of the central United States from the Rocky Mountains to the Midwest braced Tuesday for blizzard-like conditions. An area stretching from Montana into western Nebraska and Colorado was under blizzard warnings, and the National Weather Service said that as much as 2 feet (61 centimeters) of snow was possible in some areas of western South Dakota and northwestern Nebraska. Ice and sleet were expected in the eastern Great Plains. In the south, a line of thunderstorms that moved across North Texas and Oklahoma in the early morning hours brought tornadoes, damaging winds, hail and heavy rain, said National Weather Service meteorologist Tom Bradshaw. Authorities on Tuesday reported dozens of damaged homes and businesses and several people injured. In the Fort Worth suburbs, photos sent by the North ...

LIVE: Mandous Cyclone in Andhra Pradesh, rivers overflow in several areas

Catch all the latest news and updates from around the world here

Cyclone Mandous: Schools, colleges declare holiday in Puducherry, Karaikal

With the Cyclone 'Mandous' intensified into a major cyclonic storm, Puducherry has declared a two-day holiday for educational institutions across the territory

Ecuador volcano registers new activity with gas emissions, ash fall

Gas and water vapour emissions, a low level of ash and an increase in seismic activity were recordedat the Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador, according to officials

Indonesia quake: 6-yr-old pulled alive from wreckage, death toll at 271

The 5.6-magnitude quake that hit Indonesia's Cianjur region resulted in the deaths of 271 persons, however, the hopes for survivors persist after a six-year-old boy was pulled alive

At least 68 injured after 5.9 magnitude earthquake strikes northwest Turkey

An earthquake with a magnitude 5.9 has hit a town in northwest Turkey on Wednesday, Turkey's government-run Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency said. The earthquake was centred in the town of Golkaya, in Duzce province, some 200 kilometers east of Istanbul. It was felt in Istanbul and in the capital Ankara. The quake sent people rushing out of buildings and cut power in the area, Duzce's mayor Faruk Ozlu told private NTV television. Ozlu said there was no immediate report of casualty or damage but authorities were still assessing possible destruction. Turkey sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. Duzce was hit by a powerful earthquake in 1999, which killed some 800 people.

6.2 magnitude quake in Mexico leaves Baja California relatively undamaged

A 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck a relatively unpopulated stretch of the Pacific coast of Mexico's Baja California peninsula Tuesday. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake happened about 8:40 am local time offshore near the village of Vicente Guerrero. The town is about 270 kilometers south of the border city of Tijuana. Unlike Tijuana and Ensenada, that stretch of coast has little development. Mexico's civil defense agency discounted any possibility of a tsunami. Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Avila said there appeared to be no danger to residents or visitors.

Earthquake death toll in Indonesia's Java rises to 268; 151 missing

The death toll from the earthquake that shook the Indonesian island of Java leapt to 268 on Tuesday as more bodies were found beneath collapsed buildings, and 151 people are still missing, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency said. Agency head Suharyanto, who like many Indonesians only goes by one name, told reporters that another 1,083 people were injured in the 5.6 magnitude earthquake that hit Monday afternoon near the city of Cianjur. The temblor sent terrified residents fleeing into the streets, some covered in blood and debris, and caused buildings around the rural area to collapse. One woman told The Associated Press that when the earthquake hit, her home in Cianjur started shaking like it was dancing. I was crying and immediately grabbed my husband and children, said the woman, who gave her name only as Partinem. The house collapsed shortly after she escaped with her family. If I didn't pull them out we might have also been victims, she said, gazing over the pile of ...

47 dead, dozens feared missing as storm lashes parts of Philippines

Flash floods and landslides set off by torrential rains left at least 47 people dead, including in a hard-hit southern Philippine province, where as many as 60 villagers are feared missing and buried in a deluge of rainwater, mud, rocks and trees, officials said Saturday. At least 42 people were swept away by rampaging floodwaters and drowned or were hit by debris-filled mudslides in three towns in Maguindanao province from Thursday night to early Friday, said Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a five-province Muslim autonomous region run by former separatist guerrillas. Five other people died elsewhere from the onslaught of Tropical Storm Nalgae, which slammed into the eastern province of Camarines Sur early Saturday, the government's disaster-response agency said. But the worst storm impact so far was a mudslide laden with rainwater, rocks and trees that buried dozens of houses with as many as 60 people in the tribal village of Kusiong in Maguindanao's Datu Odin Sinsuat .

Efforts on to support families affected by cyclone Sitrang in Meghalaya: CM

With Cyclone Sitrang leaving a trail of destruction in Meghalaya, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma has said that efforts are being made to ensure all support to the affected families. The chief minister said he had reviewed the situation in the northeastern state in the aftermath of the cyclone at a meeting attended by deputy commissioners of all 12 districts. The revenue and disaster management departments are working full swing and efforts are being made to provide all support to the affected families. All deputy commissioners are working to ensure as much relief as possible to those hit by the cyclone, he said on Wednesday. Cyclone Sitrang had hurtled through the state in the early hours of Tuesday damaging hundreds of houses and uprooting electric poles. The accompanying rain triggered flash floods that destroyed paddy and potato crops. Stating that the power supply has been hit in the state by the cyclonic storm, he said the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited is working to ...

222 mn Indian children face double threat of disasters, poverty: Report

About 51 per cent of children in India are living under the dual impacts of poverty and the climate emergency, according to a new study. There are almost 350 million children across Asia, including 222 million in India, who are gripped by both grinding poverty and climate disaster, the 'Generation Hope: 2.4 billion reasons to end the global climate and inequality crisis' report stated. Developed by child rights NGO Save the Children and climate modelling from researchers at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, it also stated that Cambodia topped the list of Asian countries most likely to face this "double threat", with 72 per cent of children in the country affected, followed by Myanmar (64 per cent) and Afghanistan (57 per cent). However, India was ranked the highest globally in terms of overall number of children facing this "double threat" of poverty and climate disaster, it stated. While 351.9 million children in India are estimated to be affected by at least one extreme climate eve

Strong quake injures nearly 36 people in north Philippines; airport shut

A strong earthquake rocked a large swath of the northern Philippines, injuring at least 36 people and forcing the closure of an international airport and the evacuation of patients in a hospital, officials said on Wednesday. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said Tuesday night's magnitude 6.4 quake, which was set off by movement of a local fault, was centred 9 kilometres (5 miles) northwest of Lagayan town in Abra province at a depth of 11 kilometres (7 miles). The US Tsunami Warning System said no warning or advisory was issued. The quake was felt across a wide area of the main northern Luzon region, including in some parts of metropolitan Manila, more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Abra. At least 10 people received mostly minor injuries in Abra, mainly from falling debris, and 26 others were injured in Ilocos Norte, the home province of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The international airport in Ilocos Norte's capital city of Laoag was closed on ..