VIENNA, June 13, 2024 (AFP) – A landslide after heavy rains in Austria has killed a five-year-old boy, police said, as the environment minister warned Thursday that climate change was hitting the mountainous country “harder and harder”. In recent weeks, heavy rains have led to widespread flooding and hundreds of landslides across Austria. The area close to the border with Slovenia and Hungary in the southern provinces of Styria and Burgenland has been especially […]
Tag: weather
India court urges heatwave emergency declaration as deaths rise
NEW DELHI, May 31, 2024 (AFP) – An Indian court has urged the government to declare a national emergency over the country’s ongoing heatwave, saying that hundreds of people had died during weeks of extreme weather. India is enduring a crushing heatwave with temperatures in several cities sizzling well above 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit). It has not published nationwide figures for deaths attributed to the current heatwave but the eastern state of Bihar […]
Tornadoes rip through central US, leaving at least 15 dead
HOUSTON, May 26, 2024 (AFP) – At least 15 people were killed across the central United States as tornadoes and other extreme storms hit several states including Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma, officials said Sunday. Rescue efforts were ongoing and hundreds of thousands of customers were without power after the storms struck the Southern Plains region beginning late Saturday. In Texas, Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington told a press conference that seven people were dead after […]
Thousands flee as Philippine storm hits main island
MANILA, May 26, 2024 (AFP) – A severe storm battered the Philippines’ most populous island on Sunday, dumping heavy rain and causing flooding that forced more than 8,000 people to flee their homes. After making landfall on the central island of Samar late Friday, the first storm to hit the Philippines this year strengthened as it swept northwest to the main island of Luzon where it hovered near the capital Manila. Severe tropical storm Ewiniar, […]
Thousands flee as cyclone heads towards Bangladesh
By Mohammad MAZED PATUAKHALI, Bangladesh, May 26, 2024 (AFP) – Tens of thousands of Bangladeshis left their coastal villages Sunday for concrete storm shelters further inland as the low-lying nation prepared for the expected landfall of an intense cyclone, officials said. Cyclone Remal is set to hit the southern coast and parts of neighbouring India on Sunday evening, with Bangladesh’s weather department predicting crashing waves and howling gales with gusts of up to 130 kilometres […]
Mexico City records highest-ever temperature of 34.7 C
MEXICO CITY, May 26, 2024 (AFP) – Mexico City recorded its highest-ever temperature on Saturday when thermometers hit 34.7 degrees Celsius (94.46 degrees Fahrenheit) as a deadly heatwave scorches the country. The “highest temperature since records have been kept” was recorded Saturday afternoon at the Tacubaya observatory, the National Meteorological Service said. The previous record of 34.4 degrees Celsius was observed the day before at the same station in the capital, the weather service added. […]
Tornado leaves five dead in Iowa
WASHINGTON, May 23, 2024 (AFP) – A tornado that ripped through the midwestern US state of Iowa killed five people and left dozens injured, officials said, with homes smashed to pieces and cars thrown through the air. Residents surveyed the wreckage of flattened buildings and uprooted trees after the storm left a path of destruction across the town of Greenfield on Tuesday. “Four fatalities and at least 35 injuries were the result of the tornado […]
Death toll from Texas storm rises to 7
HOUSTON, May 18, 2024 (AFP) – The death toll from severe weather that lashed the Texas city of Houston has risen to seven, authorities said Friday. The three additional deaths came after Houston, the fourth-largest US city, was hit Thursday by heavy rain and winds up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour, leaving downtown streets covered in glass from blown-out windows. Downed trees and power lines littered residential areas and the National Weather Service […]
‘Danger behind the beauty’: more solar storms could be heading our way
By Daniel Lawler PARIS, May 18, 2024 (AFP) – Tourists normally have to pay big money and brave cold climates for a chance to see an aurora, but last weekend many people around the world simply had to look up to see these colourful displays dance across the sky. Usually banished to the poles of Earth, the auroras strayed as far as Mexico, southern Europe and South Africa on the evening of May 10, delighting […]
Canadian oil sands city evacuated as wildfire draws near
FORT MCMURRAY, Canada, May 15, 2024 (AFP) – Thousands of residents of Fort McMurray, a city in Canada’s major oil-producing region, fled as an out-of-control wildfire drew near and thick smoke filled the skies. Shifting winds gusting to 40 kilometers per hour (25 miles per hour) fanned the flames, scorching 9,600 hectares of surrounding forests as it advanced to within 13 kilometers of the city in the western province of Alberta that had been gutted […]
Indonesia flood death toll rises to 41 with 17 missing
TANAH DATAR, Indonesia, May 13, 2024 (AFP) – The number of people killed by flash floods and cold lava flow from a volcano in western Indonesia over the weekend has risen to 41 with 17 more missing, a local disaster agency official told AFP Monday. Hours of heavy rain caused large volcanic rocks to roll down one of Indonesia’s most active volcanos into two districts on Sumatra island Saturday evening, while flooding inundated […]
Wildfires in western Canada force thousands from their homes
By: Thomas I. Likness – NET/25 Eagle News Service (Eagle News) — Out-of-control wildfires have prompted Canadian officials to evacuate thousands of people in northeastern British Columbia and northwestern Alberta. Poor air quality and reduced visibility have forced the three-thousand residents of Fort Nelson, B-C and a nearby Indigenous community to flee their homes. A fast-growing blaze has chewed its way through 42-hundred hectares of forest. A tree that fell on a power line is […]
