At least 242 million students in 85 countries had their schooling disrupted by extreme climate events in 2024, including heatwaves, tropical cyclones, storms, floods, and droughts, exacerbating an existing learning crisis, according to a new UNICEF analysis released today. Heatwaves were the predominant climate hazard shuttering schools last year, with …
New Zealand will boost its aid contribution to Vanuatu to $3.5 million dollars to help the cyclone-ravaged nation recover. A further $1 million was announced today by Foreign Minister Murray McCully to top up New Zealand's aid contribution in the wake of Cyclone Pam. New Zealand will also help transport …
PORT VILA – Japan is considering extending $1.2 million in emergency grant aid to Vanuatu and other Pacific nations devastated by powerful Cyclone Pam, a senior government official said Sunday. At his meeting with Vanuatuan Foreign Minister Sato Kilman, Parliamentary Vice Foreign Minister Kentaro Sonoura said Tokyo is ready to …
WMO has confirmed continuation of warming trend over the past few decades, with 14 of the 15 hottest years on record occurring this century. Record ocean heat, high land-surface temperatures and devastating flooding were some of the defining characteristics of the global climate in 2014, which was nominally the warmest …
A powerful tropical cyclone was losing strength after crossing Australia's north-east coast on Friday, with no immediate reports of injuries. Cyclone Nathan made landfall shortly before dawn as a category four system, the second highest intensity rating, and was expected to continue its westward movement inland while weakening, according to …
A powerful category three cyclone is headed for the far-north of Queensland in Australia. Forecasters predict Cyclone Nathan, currently 400km (249 miles) off the coast, will make landfall on Friday. Residents between Cairns and Cape Melville have been warned to stay indoors, with gale force winds of up to 110km/h …
Cyclone Pam's impact may not be restricted to devastating the island nation of Vanuatu – it may also have boosted the likelihood of an El Nino event for later this year, the Bureau of Meteorology said. The strength of category-5 Cyclone Pam combined with tropical storm Bavi to produce "one …
Evacuation alerts issued as experts warn the category five cyclone could be the most powerful storm ever to hit the island nation A “once-in-a-lifetime” storm is bearing down on the South Pacific islands of Vanuatu, with up to a quarter of a million people in its path, experts warn. Tropical …
A tropical cyclone off Western Australia's northwest coast that has already forced port authorities to close two ports will intensify before making landfall, the national weather bureau said on Thursday. Tropical Cyclone Olwyn is expected to strengthen to a category three storm hitting land to the west of Australia's largest …
The Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, scheduled to convene in Sendai, Japan from March 14-18, will adopt a new framework for disaster risk reduction for the coming 15 years. "Leaders and decision-makers across Asia and the Pacific are preparing to finalize a new global framework for disaster …
Residents in parts of Western Australia and Queensland have been warned to prepare for stormy weather as two cyclones develop offshore. Forecasters say a low-pressure system off Western Australia could cause hurricane force winds along parts of the coast at the end of the week. Another system off the coast …
(Reuters) - A low pressure system off northeastern Australia holds up to a 50 percent chance of intensifying to cyclone strength over the next two days and slamming into a region devastated two weeks ago by Cyclone Marcia, according to meteorologists. "This low is expected to deepen during the next …
Despite the crocs, it's a popular camping and fishing spot for those with a four-wheel-drive and the tenacity to get there. But Bathurst Bay has a dark, almost forgotten past. It's the scene of Australia's deadliest natural disaster - when monster Cyclone Mahina produced a world-record storm surge and killed …
After Cyclone Hudhud pounded India's southern port city of Visakhapatnam last October, snapping bridges, swamping farmland and wrecking fishing boats, many breathed a sigh of relief. The lives of tens of thousands of residents had been spared as a result of a well-rehearsed mass evacuation to shelters - a lesson …
Globally, disasters due to natural hazards takes an enormous toll in terms of human lives, destruction to crops and livelihoods, and economic losses. Disaster risk reduction (DRR) has therefore become a critical part of sustainable development strategies. Over the past decades, the role of healthy ecosystems in providing cheap, reliable …
This study on “Disasters in Asia and the Pacific: 2014 Year in review”, developed by the Information and Communications Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division of ESCAP, provides an overview of natural disasters in the Asia-Pacific region and its impacts. Although there were no major disasters in 2014, over half …
The World Meteorological Organization has issued a report on the Climate in Africa 2013, the first in what is intended to be an annual series. It examines temperatures, rainfall and extreme events on a continent which is especially vulnerable to natural climate variability and long-term climate change due to greenhouse …
Smoke caused by land clearing may be linked to stronger, more intense tornadoes, according to a new study. Researchers from the University of Iowa (UI) focused on a historic extreme weather event that occurred in April 2011, which produced 122 tornadoes and resulted in 313 deaths across the southeastern United …
Mangrove cultivation is back in the outer channel of the Chilika lagoon. The initiative is community-driven and expected to help conserve the bio-diversity, improve the coastal eco-system and generate sustainable livelihood for local communities. Official sources said in the past decade and a half, mangrove cultivation had failed despite the …
Governments need research and guidelines to help them to move towns and villages threatened by global warming, argue David López-Carr and Jessica Marter-Kenyon.
The Ganges–Brahmaputra river delta, with 170 million people and a vast, low-lying coastal plain, is perceived to be at great risk of increased flooding and submergence from sea-level rise. However, human alteration of the landscape can create similar risks to sea-level rise. Here, we report that islands in southwest Bangladesh, …
