Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Are missing palm trees causing more lighting deaths in Bihar appearing in ‘The Times of India’ dated 29.05.2025". The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Are missing palm trees causing …
Entire Himalayan region is vulnerable to rain-induced (torrential rainfall) hazards in the form of flash flood, cloudburst or glacial lake outburst flood. Flash floods and cloudburst are generally caused by high intensity rainfall followed by debris flow or landslide often resulting into blockade of river channels. The examples of some …
More than 40,000 people were evacuated as typhoon Prapiroon hit southern China on August 3, pounding an already battered area with more heavy rains and winds. Till reports last received, at least six people have been killed. Prapiroon made landfall along a stretch of coastal Guangdong province, including the cities …
A tsunami has once again hit the Java islands of Indonesia. Four-metre high waves, which crashed into the western and central-southern coast of the islands on July 17, were triggered by a series of mid-afternoon earthquakes centred deep beneath the Indian Ocean. The us Geological Survey measured the first and …
July 26, 2005 has gone down as a day no Mumbaikar will forget. A record 994 mm (37.2 inches) of rain within 24 hours, widespread flooding and the loss of lives and property, the virtual shutdown of the
More than US $2 billion has been defrauded in Hurricane Katrina and Rita relief operations. The amount is nearly 11 per cent of the total funds spent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency on relief and rehabilitation for the hurricanes that hit the US in mid-June 2005. Federal prosecutors have …
An earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale hit the Indonesian island of Java in the early hours of May 27, 2006. More than 135,000 houses were destroyed and an estimated 647,000 people were displaced, according to reports from Associated Press. The quake was centred just off the Indian Ocean …
Intense rainfall often leads to floods and landslides in the Himalayan region even with rainfall amounts that are considered comparatively moderate over the plains; for example, ‘cloudbursts’, which are devastating convective phenomena producing sudden high-intensity rainfall (∼10 cm per hour) over a small area. Early prediction and warning of such …
This document contains the White paper presented at Workshop on climate change and disaster losses: understanding and attributing trends and projections at Hohenkammer, Munich during 25
Climatic changes, droughts, floods, heat/cold waves, pests, diseases and poverty dynamics is a complex phenomenon demanding multidisciplinary management of early warning systems, risk assessment, insurance and mitigation.
earthquake-resistant measures adopted by India may be founded on shaky ground as the country has failed to incorporate the latest understanding of geophysical processes, caution experts. Seismologist K N Khattri, who recently retired as head of the seismology department at the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee, questions the soundness …
In the first week of February, the European Commission (ec) adopted a new law setting maximum levels of the sum of dioxins and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls ( pcbs) in food and animal feed. Starting November 2006, any food or feed having higher levels of these chemicals than would not be …
For over a decade, Orissa has been teetering from one extreme weather condition to another: from heatwaves to cyclones, drought to floods. The state has been declared disaster-affected for 95 of the last 105 years. Why is this happening? Is it the result of global warming and climate change? Richard …
Orissa has a long history of cyclones. Devastation and death toll were very high during 1999 super cyclone. The response to the cyclone in India and from abroad was also tremendous. The objective of this paper is to assess the activities of the government and NGOs providing relief, rehabilitation and …
The Vatican has dismissed intelligent design (id) on scientific grounds and has agreed to the Pennsylvania court's ruling to keep id out of the classrooms. After months of mixed messages from Pope Benedict xvi and his aides, the Vatican directly addressed the issue in the January 17, 2006, edition of …
Recent landslides and flash floods in Indonesia, which claimed almost 300 lives, have set off a heated debate over logging being a possible cause. Local environmentalists say the disaster exposed the government's failure to check the rampant illegal logging. But forestry minister Malam Kaban denied the charge, saying, "There is …
If the December floods in Chennai were a wakeup call, the hasty drive to clear encroachments is proof that its lessons haven't been learnt. The Cooum and Adyar rivers flooded their banks and entered nearby residential areas
A year after Sri Lanka's worst natural disaster, many victims of the tsunami languish in makeshift shelters while an inefficient government bureaucracy and the country's poor utilisation of foreign aid continues to compound the crisis. Experts reckon that at the current rate, it will take at least four years for …
Natural disasters, mostly weather-related catastrophes, have cost the world the largest-ever financial losses of around us $200 billion in 2005. In 2004, this loss was us $145 billion and around us $60 billion in 2003. These losses were highlighted in a report presented by Munich Re, a leading re-insurance company, …
