Tag: climate

Why has the flooding in Kenya been so devastating? | Weather News

Torrential rains have caused devastating floods in Kenya, where more than 200 people have died, thousands have been displaced and nearly 2,000 schools have been destroyed. All remaining schools have been shut down until further notice.

Rains have been ravaging Kenya since March during some of the most catastrophic weather events in the country for years. Now, Cyclone Hidaya is expected to hit Kenya and neighbouring Tanzania late on Friday, which could further worsen the flooding. This comes amid recent heavy rainfall across East Africa.

Here is more about the floods in Kenya so far:

How many people have been killed and injured in Kenya’s floods?

The flooding has wreaked havoc in Kenya, causing death and destruction. Here are the latest figures from Kenya’s Ministry of Interior on Friday:

  • At least 210 people have been killed, including 20 in a recent 24-hour period, and 125 have been injured.
  • Ninety people have been reported missing with dozens believed to be lost under the debris.
  • About 3,100 households have been displaced.
  • The schools that have been destroyed number 1,967.

“There are many people who cannot be found. Many of my neighbours cannot be found,” Jane Wambui, a flood survivor, told Al Jazeera.

Many of those who have been worst affected by the flooding live in informal settlements, such as Nairobi’s Mathare, where residents have accused the government of neglecting them.

“The government says they deployed the military and the national youth service and they are stepping up search and rescue missions, but where are they? It has been a week, and where are they? I have not seen anyone here in Mathare. Not one person from the government has come to help us,” Mathare resident Collins Obondo said.

Where in Kenya is the flooding the worst?

In the town of Mai Mahiu in southern Kenya, a dam burst on Monday, killing at least 48 people.

(Al Jazeera)

Mai Mahiu in Nakuru County is west of the capital, Nairobi, which is expected to be hit by more heavy rains, according to a warning issued on X on Friday by Kenya’s Meteorological Department.

What has caused the flooding in Kenya?

While climate events such as El Nino – the warming of the surface water of the Pacific Ocean, which causes heavy rainfall in some parts of the world – have been linked to the increase in rain, many Kenyans believe the flooding has been exacerbated by lack of investment by the government.

In Mathare, locals blamed the flooding on poorly maintained, frequently blocked drains that have caused water to accumulate.

Flood survivor Nahason Igeria told Al Jazeera: “This was caused by the state national Railways Corporation. They are the ones who built the culvert downstream and the tunnel upstream. It should be their responsibility to maintain the system.”

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch published findings that low-income neighbourhoods, such as Mathare, had been severely impacted by the floods due to “less solid structures, congestion and poor sanitation infrastructure”.

In a statement, Greenpeace Africa Executive Director Oulie Keita said the floods are a “stark reminder of the human cost of the climate crisis”, adding, “Some of the damage was further worsened by misinformed development.”

How has the Kenyan government responded to the floods?

In anticipation of Cyclone Hidaya, President William Ruto’s government has ordered mandatory evacuations for residents living close to 178 dams and water reservoirs in 33 counties.

During his national address to the nation on Friday, Ruto said he had directed the Ministry of Education to postpone the reopening of schools for their second term until further notice. Besides the schools destroyed since March, many other schools are being used to shelter those who have been displaced by the floods.

Ruto’s approach to managing the floods has been criticised by residents of Mai Mahiu and of several informal settlements that have been devastated by floodwaters.

Human Rights Watch said the government failed to act following the Meteorological Department’s warnings in May last year that Kenya would experience enhanced rainfall due to El Nino and it would continue into 2024.

While the government set aside at least 10 billion Kenyan shillings ($80m) in preparation for a nationwide response, it did not outline a plan of action. In October, Ruto mistakenly said Kenya would not experience El Nino rainfall as had been predicted.

The Meteorological Department now expects the rainfall to continue until June.

What impact is Cyclone Hidaya expected to have?

Cyclone Hidaya is likely to result in “heavy rainfall, large waves and strong winds that could affect marine activities in the Indian Ocean”, the presidential office said.

The cyclone is also expected to make the search for the bodies of those missing and feared dead even more difficult, experts said.



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Rains, mudslides kill 29 in southern Brazil’s ‘worst disaster’ | Floods News

The death toll from heavy rains in Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state has climbed to 29, with at least 60 people missing, according to the state’s civil defence agency.

The authorities in Rio Grande do Sul have declared a state of emergency as rescuers continue to search for dozens of people reported missing among the ruins of collapsed homes, bridges and roads.

Rescuers and soldiers have been scrambling to free families trapped in their homes, many stranded on rooftops to escape rising waters.

Storm damage has affected nearly 150 municipalities in the state, also injuring 36 people and displacing more than 10,000.

Governor Eduardo Leite said Rio Grande do Sul was dealing with “the worst disaster in [its] history”, adding that the number of dead was expected to rise.

On Thursday, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised “there will be no lack of human or material resources” to “minimize the suffering this extreme event … is causing in the state”.

Federal authorities have already made available 12 aircraft, 45 vehicles and 12 boats as well as 626 soldiers to help clear roads, distribute food, water and mattresses, and set up shelters.

Forecasts warned that the state’s main Guaiba river, which has already overflowed its banks in some areas, could rise to four metres (13 feet) on Friday.

Entire communities in Rio Grande do Sul have been completely cut off as the persistent rains have destroyed bridges and blocked roads, and left towns without telephone and internet services.

The authorities have told people to avoid areas along state highways due to the risk of mudslides, and urged those who live near rivers or on hillsides to evacuate.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been left without access to drinking water, while classes have been suspended statewide.

South America’s largest country has suffered a string of recent extreme weather events, which experts say are made more likely by climate change. The floods came amid a cold front battering the south and southeast, following a wave of extreme heat.

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Kenya searches for missing people amid deadly floods | Floods News

Rescuers are searching for many people missing amid devastating flooding across Kenya.

The Ministry of Interior and National Administration said on Tuesday that a search operation had been launched following the bursting of a dam in Mai Mahiu in the centre of the country the previous day. Hundreds of people are reported to have died as heavy rains have lashed East Africa in recent weeks.

At least 46 people were reported killed on Monday morning after the bursting of the dam led to mudslides and flash floods in Mai Mahiu, the ministry said in a situation report. Survivors described an onslaught of water that carried away houses, cars and railway tracks.

“When I opened the door, the water gushed in and made its way through the kitchen,” said resident Anne Gachie. “My husband managed to quickly manoeuvre and get out. My daughters, who were in the next room, were swept out of the house.”

Fifty-three people in Mai Mahiu were reported missing, the Interior Ministry said. Meanwhile, the Kenya Red Cross said its tracing desk had reports of 76 people missing.

The eastern county of Garissa, where four people were killed when their boat capsized over the weekend and 23 others were rescued from the floodwaters, has reported 16 people missing.

At least 169 people have died across Kenya as heavy rains have buffeted Eastern Africa since mid-March, causing flooding and other catastrophes.

More than 185,000 Kenyans have been forced from their homes. Hundreds have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in neighbouring Tanzania and Burundi.

Scientists say climate change is causing more intense and frequent extreme weather events.

At least 120 people were killed in Kenya late last year in floods caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon. Those rains followed the worst drought large parts of East Africa had experienced in decades.

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Asia bears biggest climate-change brunt amid extreme weather: WMO | Climate News

World Meteorological Organization says floods and storms were leading cause of casualties and economic losses as impact of heatwaves becomes more severe.

Asia was the region most affected by climate change, weather and water-related hazards globally last year, the United Nations weather agency has said.

In a report published on Tuesday, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said floods and storms were the main cause of casualties and economic damage in 2023, while the impact of heatwaves became more severe.

It found that Asia has been warming faster than the global average, with temperature rises in 2023 averaging nearly 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1961-90 average.

“Many countries in the region experienced their hottest year on record in 2023, along with a barrage of extreme conditions, from droughts and heatwaves to floods and storms,” WMO chief Celeste Saulo said in a statement.

She added that climate change “exacerbated the frequency and severity of such events”, calling the report’s conclusions “sobering”.

The agency said 79 disasters associated with water-related weather hazards were reported in Asia last year. Of those, some 80 percent were floods and storms, with more than 2,000 deaths and nine million people directly affected.

The State of the Climate in Asia 2023 report also found that floods were the leading cause of death in reported events in 2023 “by a substantial margin”.

Hong Kong recorded 158.1mm (6.2 inches) of rainfall in one hour on September 7 – the highest since records began in 1884 – as a result of a typhoon.

The report also highlighted that most glaciers in the high mountain region in Asia had lost significant mass because of record-breaking high temperatures and dry conditions.

Precipitation was below normal in the Himalayas and in the Hindu Kush mountain ranges in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2023, while southwest China suffered from a drought, with below-normal precipitation levels in nearly every month of the year.

Particularly high average temperatures were recorded from western Siberia to Central Asia, and from eastern China to Japan, the report said, with Japan having its hottest summer on record.

‘Urgency’ for action

The report comes as a number of Asian countries have been hit by severe floods in recent weeks.

In southern China, more than 100,000 people were evacuated on Tuesday due to heavy rain and floods that have killed at least four people. Meanwhile, authorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan last week declared a state of emergency in some regions after heavy rains and flash floods killed at least 100 people.

The WMO said there was an urgent need for national weather services across Asia to improve tailored information to officials working on reducing disaster risks.

“It is imperative that our actions and strategies mirror the urgency of these times,” said Saulo.

“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the evolving climate is not merely an option, but a fundamental necessity.”

Peter Newman, professor of sustainability at Curtin University, told Al Jazeera that climate change is a “war that we are inducing onto ourselves,” adding that the world is in the middle of climate crisis that is expected to get worse until net zero emissions are implemented thoroughly.

“If we can do that by 2040, for example, then immediately, we would start to get on top of it all, but until then we are going to have to expect more damage from floods, fires, and all kinds of weather changes,” he said.

He referred to the recent floods across Asia as a “terrific wake-up call”, adding that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of which he’s a co-ordinating lead author, has been predicting changes for some time, but that they have “come quicker than we thought.”

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Highest-level rainstorm warning issued in south China’s Guangdong | Floods News

The Chinese government has issued its highest-level rainstorm warning and evacuated more than 100,000 people as rain continues to lash the south of the country.

Beijing raised the alert on Tuesday as ongoing storms threatened to worsen already massive flooding in Guangdong province. Four people were reported killed over the weekend, while 10 others are missing.

Torrential rains have been swelling rivers in Guangdong, prompting state media to warn of the risk of floods at a level “seen around once a century”.

State news agency Xinhua said 110,000 residents across the province had been relocated since the downpours started. Guangdong is China’s manufacturing heartland, home to about 127 million people.

“Please quickly take precautions and stay away from dangerous areas such as low-lying areas prone to flooding,” authorities in the coastal city of Shenzhen – China’s third largest – said as the red alert was issued.

“Pay attention to heavy rains and resulting disasters such as water logging, flash floods, landslides, mudslides, and ground caving in,” they warned.

Climate change driven by human-emitted greenhouse gases makes extreme weather events more frequent and intense. China is the world’s biggest emitter.

In recent years China has been hit by severe floods, grinding droughts and record heat.

That has helped make the authorities swift to respond, lowering the number of casualties compared with previous decades.

Shenzhen experienced in September its heaviest rains since records began in 1952. The nearby semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong saw its heaviest rainfall in nearly 140 years.

Asia was the world’s most disaster-hit region from climate and weather hazards in 2023, according to a report issued by the United Nations on Tuesday, with floods and storms a major cause of casualties and economic loss.

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Europe endured record number of ‘extreme heat stress’ days in 2023 | Climate Crisis News

New report warns people are increasingly at risk in a continent warming twice as fast as the global average.

Europe is increasingly facing bouts of heat so intense that the human body cannot cope, climate monitors have warned.

The continent endured a record number of “extreme heat stress” days in 2023, the European Union’s Copernicus climate monitoring service and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Monday.

In writing its latest report, Copernicus and the WMO noted last year’s extreme conditions, including a July heatwave that pushed 41 percent of southern Europe into strong, very strong or extreme heat stress – the biggest area of Europe under such conditions in any day on record.

The continent also suffered catastrophic flooding, severe droughts, violent storms and its largest ever forest fires.

“We’re seeing an increasing trend in the number of days with heat stress across Europe and 2023 was no exception, with Europe seeing a record number of days with extreme heat stress,” said Rebecca Emerton, a climate scientist at Copernicus.

For its latest study, Copernicus and WMO used the Universal Thermal Climate Index, which measures the effect of the environment on the human body.

It takes into account not just high temperatures but also humidity, wind speed, sunshine and heat emitted by the surroundings.

The index has 10 different categories of heat and cold stress, with units of degrees Celsius representing a “feels-like” temperature.

Parts of Spain, France, Italy and Greece experienced as many as 10 days of extreme heat stress in 2023, defined as a “feels like” temperature of more than 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Farenheit), at which point immediate action must be taken to avoid conditions such as heat stroke.

Extreme heat poses particular risks to people who work outdoors, the elderly, and those with health conditions such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

Parts of Italy recorded 7 percent more deaths than normal last July. A 44-year-old man painting road markings in the northern town of Lodi was among those who died after he collapsed at work.

“We see that there is excess mortality when we see such extreme heatwaves like was the case in 2023,” said Alvaro Silva, a climatologist from WMO.

“This increase in mortality… is affecting [the] big majority of European regions. This is a big concern.”

Red Cross workers check on the welfare of a homeless man during a heatwave in Rome last July [Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters]

Heat-related deaths in Europe have soared by about 30 percent in the past 20 years, the report said.

For the world as a whole, last month was the warmest March ever, marking the 10th straight month of historic heat as greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from fossil fuels, continued to push temperatures higher.

The surface temperature of the world’s oceans, which absorb 90 percent of excess heat produced by emissions, also hit a new high, according to Europe’s climate monitoring agency.

In their latest report, scientists warned Europe was warming twice as fast as the global average and that heatwaves were likely to become longer and more powerful in future.

“Current heatwave interventions will soon be insufficient to deal with the expected heat-related health burden,” the report said, noting that Europe’s population was ageing while also becoming increasingly urban.

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Thousands protest against over-tourism in Spain’s Canary Islands | Tourism News

Demonstrators say mass tourism is overwhelming the Atlantic archipelago.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have hit the streets of Spain’s Canary Islands to demand changes to the model of mass tourism they say is overwhelming the Atlantic archipelago.

An estimated 57,000 people joined the protests, which began at midday (11:00 GMT) on Saturday, Spanish media reports said, citing the central government’s representative in the islands.

Flag-waving crowds packed the streets of the main towns across all of the archipelago’s seven islands, chanting and whistling, and holding placards with slogans like: “The Canary Islands are not up for sale!”; “A moratorium on tourism”; and “Respect my home”.

“It’s not a message against the tourist, but against a tourism model that doesn’t benefit this land and needs to be changed,” one of the protesters told the Reuters news agency during the march in Tenerife’s capital, Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Smaller marches were held elsewhere in the island group and other Spanish cities, all of them organised by about two dozen environmental organisations ahead of the peak summer holiday season.

The protests were called by some 20 social and environmental groups who say tourist overcrowding perpetuates an economic model that harms local residents and damages the environment.

They want the authorities to limit the number of visitors and have proposed introducing an eco-tax to protect the environment, a moratorium on tourism and a clampdown on the sale of properties to non-residents.

“The authorities must immediately stop this corrupt and destructive model that depletes the resources and makes the economy more precarious. The Canary Islands have limits and people’s patience [does], too,” Antonio Bullon, one of the protest leaders, told Reuters.

A woman shouts next to a banner with the word “tourism” during a demonstration in the Canary Islands [Borja Suarez/Reuters]

‘We can’t keep looking away’

The archipelago of 2.2 million people was visited by nearly 14 million foreign tourists in 2023, up 13 percent from the previous year, according to official data.

Authorities in the islands are concerned about the impact on locals. A draft law expected to pass this year – one that toughens the rules on short lets – follows complaints from residents priced out of the housing market.

Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo said on Friday that he felt “proud” that the region was a leading Spanish tourist destination, but acknowledged that more controls were needed as the sector continues to grow.

“We can’t keep looking away. Otherwise, hotels will continue to open without any control,” he told a press conference.

Anti-tourism protests have multiplied in recent months across Spain, the world’s second-most visited country, prompting authorities to try to reconcile the interests of locals and a lucrative sector that accounts for 12.8 percent of Spain’s economy.

The Canary Islands, which lie off the northwestern coast of Africa, are known for their volcanic landscapes and year-round sunshine attracting millions of visitors every year, with four in 10 residents working in tourism – a sector that accounts for 36 percent of the islands’ gross domestic product (GDP).

Before the coronavirus pandemic brought the global travel industry to its knees in 2020, over-tourism protest movements were already active in Spain, notably in Barcelona.

After travel restrictions were lifted, tourism surged, with Spain welcoming a record 85.1 million visitors last year.

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Deadly Sahel heatwave caused by ‘human-induced’ climate change: Study | Climate Crisis News

Mali and Burkina Faso recorded most extreme heat in what scientists called a once-in-a-200-year occurrence.

Human-caused climate change contributed to an unusually intense and lethal hot spell throughout West Africa’s Sahel region in April, according to a study by World Weather Attribution (WWA), an international network of scientists focusing on extreme weather events.

The heatwave caused temperatures in Mali and Burkina Faso to climb to more than 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) between April 1 and April 5, an unusual spike for the season that likely led to numerous deaths, said the study published on Thursday.

The extreme weather also coincided with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and frequent power cuts, heightening the risk of heat-related casualties.

“Even minimum temperatures, overnight, remained relatively high, making it so that people did not get a break from the heat,” the study added.

‘Human-induced’ climate change

The WWA’s observations and climate models found that “heatwaves with the magnitude observed in March and April 2024 in the region would have been impossible to occur without the global warming of 1.2C to date”, which it linked to “human-induced climate change”.

Although the Sahel is accustomed to bouts of heat during this time of year, the extreme hot spell in April would have been 1.4C cooler “if humans had not warmed the planet by burning fossil fuels” such as coal and other activities such as deforestation.

The study noted that the five days of extreme heat was a once-in-a-200-year event.

But it warned that “these trends will continue with future warming”.

The WWA recommended that countries formulate heat action plans that would warn citizens when extreme temperatures are imminent and offer guidance on how to prevent overheating.

It additionally called for strengthening critical infrastructure such as electricity, water, and healthcare systems to adapt to the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme heat.

 

The length and severity of the extreme heat led to a stark increase in the number of deaths and hospitalisations in Mali and Burkina Faso, the WWA said.

In the Gabriel Toure hospital in Bamako, the capital of Mali, more than 100 deaths were reported between April 1 and 4, compared with 130 deaths for the entire month of March.

A lack of data in the affected countries makes it impossible to precisely estimate the number of heat-related deaths, said the WWA, adding there were likely hundreds, if not thousands, of other heat-related casualties.

The scientists said that rapid urbanisation and loss of green spaces in cities such as Bamako and Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, have increased the urban heat island effect, which makes parts of cities significantly warmer than others.

Countries in the Sahel region have had to contend with drought since the 1970s, as well as periods of intense rainfall from the 1990s.

The dwindling availability of water and pasture, compounded by the development of agricultural land, has disrupted the lives of pastoral populations and encouraged the emergence of armed groups that have extended their hold over vast swaths of territory in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

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After the Hurricane | Climate Crisis

The effect the carbon footprint of rich countries is having on developing nations who enjoy very few of the benefits.

There can be no denying that wealthier countries, particularly the United States and Western European nations, have emitted the lion’s share of greenhouse gases that have led to our planet’s climate crisis.

In fact, just 23 countries are responsible for half of all the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. However, it is the world’s poorer nations that are being hit hardest by the effects of climate change.

After the Hurricane explores how vulnerable populations in the developing world are suffering damaging outcomes in terms of health, food, water, education and much more. It also sheds light on how, within wealthy countries like the US, it is still the most deprived who suffer the most severe consequences of their government’s inaction on climate, while those causing the biggest damage seem to simply get richer.

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Heavy rains, lightning in Pakistan kill at least 50 people | Floods News

At least 50 people have been killed in heavy rains and lightning across Pakistan in the past three days, officials said, as authorities declared a state of emergency in some regions.

Farmers harvesting wheat died after being struck by lightning. Rains caused dozens of houses to collapse in the northwest and in eastern Punjab province.

Arfan Kathia, a spokesman for the provincial disaster management authority, said 21 people had died in Punjab, where more rains were expected this week.

Khursheed Anwar, a spokesman for the disaster management authority in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, said 21 people died there.

Torrential rains also lashed the capital, Islamabad, and killed seven people in southwestern Baluchistan province. Streets flooded in the northwestern city of Peshawar and Quetta, the Baluchistan capital.

Rafay Alam, a Pakistani environmental expert, said such heavy rainfall in April was unusual.

“Two years ago, Pakistan witnessed a heatwave in March and April and now we are witnessing rains and it is all of because of climate change, which had caused heavy flooding in 2022,” he said.

In 2022, downpours swelled rivers and at one point inundated one-third of Pakistan, killing 1,739 people. The floods also caused $30bn in damage.

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