The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
If soil quarrying is a threat in the terai, mining poses huge hazards in the hills of Kumaon. Soapstone or talc and magnesite quarries have been taking over commons for over two decades, depriving local people of large tracts of the forestland, pasture, watersheds and farming land. Eastern Bageshwar is …
The skewed pattern of rainfall experienced across the country during this year's monsoon appears to be an anomaly. UNPREDICTABLITY of the monsoon, unusual spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall over the four-month period, shifting rainfall patterns, sustained low rainfall activity, drought-like conditions in some areas and excessive rainfall in others, …
Click here to enlarge Kolkata went under water on September 24, 2006. The Meteorological Office said that Kolkata received 211.6 mm of rain on 22 September. That was 168.4 mm less than what fell on 27 September, 1978, yet the water did not recede till 10 days in many areas. …
Power to the people: The Sri Lankan government has started working on a five-year national plan on power and energy development to provide quality service at cheaper rates and to solve the country's power crisis. Under the plan, construction of the first natural gas-fired power plant with a 300 MW-capacity …
There's a popular saying in western Rajasthan: Jaankhiyon laare meh. Loosely translated, it means a good rain always follows dust storms. This summer when Rajasthan's Jaisalmer and Barmer districts witnessed dust storms, people thought it augured relief after six years of drought. The rains did come but the boon fast …
Heavy rains lashed parts of Maharashtra and Gujarat reminding people of last year's deluge. The rains were caused by low pressure in the Bay of Bengal. This intensified into a deep depression, causing torrential rains in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. Gujarat and Maharashtra suffered flooding. Karnataka and Madhya …
the Bogibeel road and rail bridge project on the Brahmaputra river in eastern Assam has run into inordinate delays. Conceived to connect National Highway (nh) 37 on the south bank and nh 52 on the north of Brahmaputra, the project has an anticipated cost of Rs 1,767 crore. It is …
Just imagine: floods in dry Rajasthan; drought in wet Assam. In both cases, devastation has been deadly, with people struggling to cope. But are these natural disasters or human-made disasters signs of change of the world's climate systems? Or are these simply the result of mismanagement so that people already …
For the Raje government, the floods are a testing time but more could have been done to minimise the losses None could have imagined even in the wildest dreams that the Barmer district of Rajasthan, where drought is the way of life, will have floods of such a high magnitude. …
• South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who is standing trial on charges of fraud and embezzlement for his team's research on stem cells, has resumed work on animal cloning. He has opened a biological research facility in southern Seoul and is working with about 30 of his former lab associates. …
india is facing the worst kind of floods in some of its most dammed states. Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh top the list of states with the maximum number of dams. Chhattisgarh and Orissa have also been affected. Releases from dams are leading to floods, as is happening …
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 …
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
floods triggered by torrential rains in Assam since the last week of May have displaced at least 15,000 people and snapped road and rail communications in the state. The rising Brahmaputra river and its tributaries have inundated at least 50 villages in the districts of Nagaon, Tinsukia, Karimganj and Hailakandi. …
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 …
After weeks of flood since the Danube river broke its embankments in April, there are threats of a disease epidemic in the flood-ridden areas. The water level in Europe's second-longest river rose to a 111-year record high when heavy rain and melting snow made the waterways swell and inundated vast …
On April17, 2006, the Munici-pal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (mcgm) moved into Mahakali Nagar, near Powai, with a police contingent and razed 276 slum units that were
