natural disasters

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    3 Dead in Missouri Tornadoes, ‘Extensive Damage’ to State Capital

    3 Dead in Missouri Tornadoes, ‘Extensive Damage’ to State Capital

    Violent tornadoes tore through Missouri Wednesday night, killing three and causing “extensive damage” to the state’s capital of Jefferson City, The New York Times reported. “There was a lot of devastation throughout the state,” Governor Mike Parson said at a Thursday morning press conference, as NPR reported. “We were very fortunate last night that we […]

    18 Tornadoes Reported in 5 States Monday

    18 Tornadoes Reported in 5 States Monday

    Extreme weather spawned 18 tornadoes across five states Monday, USA Today reported. Tornadoes were reported in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Arizona, but were not as dangerous as forecasters had initially feared, the Associated Press reported. The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC) had raised the probability of tornadoes in northwest Texas and central […]

    Indonesia Will Move its Capital from Fast-Sinking Jakarta

    Indonesia Will Move its Capital from Fast-Sinking Jakarta

    Indonesia’s president elect announced plans this week to move the country’s capital away from Jakarta, reportedly the fastest sinking city in the world. A 2018 report said that Jakarta, located on the island of Java, was one of the global cities most vulnerable to sea level rise caused by climate change. It is sinking at […]

    Heartbreaking & Devastating Camp Fire Was World’s Costliest Catastrophe of 2018

    Heartbreaking & Devastating Camp Fire Was World’s Costliest Catastrophe of 2018

    In terms of natural disasters, 2018 was a really bad year. Communities in the United States and around the world were devastated by record-breaking wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and other catastrophes. Lamentably, these weather and geophysical events caused 10,400 human deaths and $160 billion in estimated damages last year, reinsurance company Munich Re said on […]

    10 Worst-Case Climate Predictions if We Don’t Keep Global Temperatures Under 1.5 Degrees Celsius

    10 Worst-Case Climate Predictions if We Don’t Keep Global Temperatures Under 1.5 Degrees Celsius

    By Lorraine Chow The summer of 2018 was intense: deadly wildfires, persistent drought, killer floods and record-breaking heat. Although scientists exercise great care before linking individual weather events to climate change, the rise in global temperatures caused by human activities has been found to increase the severity, likelihood and duration of such conditions. Globally, 2018 […]

    More Harvey-Sized Hurricanes Likely to Hit Texas

    More Harvey-Sized Hurricanes Likely to Hit Texas

    By Tim Radford The probability that some city in the U.S. state of Texas will be hit again by Harvey-sized hurricanes, rainstorms that will dump half a meter of water in a short space of time, has increased sixfold in this century and will have increased 18-fold by 2100, thanks to climate change driven by […]

    I’m a Librarian in Puerto Rico, and This Is My Hurricane Maria Survival Story

    I’m a Librarian in Puerto Rico, and This Is My Hurricane Maria Survival Story

    By Evelyn Milagros Rodriguez, University of Puerto Rico—Humacao I’ve always been fascinated by storms, particularly Puerto Rico‘s own history of them. I think it’s because I was born in September 1960 during Hurricane Donna. In its wake, that storm left more than 100 dead in Humacao, the city where I am now a special collections […]