In 2024, the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) recorded 393 natural hazard-related disasters. These events caused 16,753 fatalities and affected 167.2 million people. Economic losses totaled US$241.95 billion. The year 2024 was marked by extreme temperature events in Asia that caused thousands of deaths, severe droughts in Africa affecting over 25 …
This study assesses the storm protection role afforded by mangroves. It uses data on human casualties, damages to houses and livestock losses suffered in the Kendrapada district of the State of Orissa during the super cyclone of October 1999. The analysis incorporates meteorological, geo-physical and socio-economic factors to separate out …
Even after two years, hurricane Katrina still haunts people in us's port city New Orleans in Louisiana state. Floods that came in the wake of the hurricane have left the soil in the city's schools contaminated with layers of arsenic. A recent report by the advocacy group Natural Resources Defense …
In the third week of August, hurricane Dean battered America's mid-western and southern states, and raced through the Gulf of Mexico. Weathermen did not expect the hurricane to intensify sharply. Dean was the third most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall since record keeping began in the 1850s. A week …
After spending a lot of money on sea walls, the Kerala government is now creating an eco-fence against natural calamities like the tsunami that ravaged the state in 2004. Under the Harithatheeram Project, the government will fence the state's 590-km coastline by planting mangroves, casuarinas, thespesias, pandanus and other species …
cyclone Gonu has showed up the chinks in India's wind pattern research. The cyclone lashed Oman on June 4, 2007, and delayed monsoon in India by a week. Indian scientists, including the India Meteorological Department (imd), failed to predict the wind disturbance on the Persian Gulf and its effect on …
Low-elevation coastal zones (leczs) are areas at an elevation of 10 metres or less above sea level. Although leczs account for just 2 per cent of the world's total land area, they contain about 634 million people: 10 per cent of the global population. About 75 per cent of people …
Water-related disasters include flood, windstorms, drought, water epidemics, famine and landslides. These combine with other water-related hazards such as pollution and chemical spills, aquifer depletion, land subsidence, salinisation of arable land, marine intrusions, sea and storm surges, coastal flooding and water-borne diseases to affect ecosystems and food and livelihood security …
hailstorm in most farming areas of Manipur in October took farmers, eagerly awaiting the harvest, by surprise. It left standing crops damaged. Imphal East, Bishenpur, Chandel, Senapati, Tamenglong, Thoubal and Ukhrul districts reported hailstorms between October 21 to 24, 2006. Harvesting usually begins in October end. Andro, a township in …
weather forecasters will now need to track atmospheric dust to predict hurricanes. Dust may dampen hurricane fury, say scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying a link between Atlantic hurricanes and thick clouds of dust that periodically rise from the Sahara Desert and blow off Africa's western coast. A strong …
Oil spill: The Sri Lankan government is still striving to deal with the oil spill that occurred in mid-September, after a Bangladeshi ship sank off the country's southern coast of Habaraduwa. The Bangladeshi merchant Vessel, Amanath Sha, was transporting a cargo of about 1,300 logs of Rangoon teak when it …
• 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. …
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 …
china storm: The death toll in China caused by the tropical storm Bilis rose to around 612 with 208 missing as on July 24, 2006, says the government news agency Xinhua. About 3 million people have been relocated because of the storm. On July 26, 2006, typhoon Kaemi too struck …
Sea level changes can be of two types: (i) changes in the mean sea level and (ii) changes in the extreme sea level. The former is a global phenomenon while the latter is a regional phenomenon. Estimates of mean sea level rise made from past tide gauge data at selected …
India being mainly an agricultural country the economy and further its growth purely depends on the vagaries of the weather and in particular the extreme weather events. The information on extreme weather events lie scattered in the scientific and technical papers and in the research work of many authors and …
Tropical cyclones—variously defined as hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones—regularly impact human populations and periodically produce devastating weather-related natural disasters. The epidemiology of tropical cyclones is fundamentally determined by the physical forces of massive cyclonic systems intersecting with patterns of human behavior. The destructive forces of cyclonic winds, inundating rains, and storm …
The authors in this paper present a factual and a brief review of the extreme weather events that occurred in India during the last 100 years (1991-2004). The socio-economic impacts of the extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, cyclones, hail storm, thunderstorm, heat and cold waves have been increasing …
An empirical model for predicting the maximum surface wind speed associated with a tropical cyclone after crossing the east coast of India is described. The model parameters are determined from the database of 19 cyclones. The model is based upon the assumption that tropical cyclone winds decay exponentially after landfall. …
russian researchers have evolved a new theory on how tornadoes form. They claim that nanoscale structures of thunderstorms produce a rapid electricity charge, sending the storms into a spin, and thereby forming tornadoes. Twisters, as tornadoes are often called, are nature's fiercest storms, leading to thousands of deaths every year …
