Bolivia – La Paz Landslide Leaves 3 Missing and Over 40 Houses Destroyed. The Mayor of La Paz, Luis Revilla, declared a disaster situation in the areas affected by the landslide, including 14 de Septiembre, Inmaculada Concepción and San Jorge Kantutani. As many as 46 houses have been completely destroyed and 18 more damaged, leaving almost 400 people displaced, according to local media reports... Read more
Natural Disasters Monitoring in Chile, El Salvador, and Guatemala - May 2, 2019. Chile Ministry of the Interior and Public Safety (ONEMI), reported heavy rain affected the following seven communes. On El salvador Civil Protection reported heavy rain affecting 144 homes... Read more
The National Weather Service (NWS) reports that numerous Michigan localities received over 5 inches of snow. Folks in Michigan may have been shocked to wake up on the first day of May to see a blanket of snow outside their windows. Areas in the upper tier of Michigan, around Lake Superior, received several inches of snow on Wednesday. It is not that unusual for the region to get accumulating snow in May, according to Walker. It occurs one out of nine years... Read more
Interesting Facts
New Ocean Reports tool brings ocean data to your fingertips. Now, when users outline any area in the U.S. EEZ using the OceanReports tool, they can get detailed information about habitats and species, industries in the area, potential hazards such as undersea cables or shipwrecks, economic value of ocean commerce, and other detailed oceanographic information... Read more
Humans can be blamed for droughts, and they're about to get worse, study says. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, finds that greenhouse gases generated by power plants, farming, cars, trains and human activities in general have influenced the risk of droughts... Read more
Drought Affects Panama Canal Shipping.This year’s El Nino weather pattern brought a drought to Panama. The lack of rain has lowered the level of the country’s Gatun Lake, a major part of the Panama Canal. The Canal Authority’s move restricts how deeply ships can reach below the surface. That means large ships, mainly from the United States and China, must pass through with less cargo... Read more
Policy Developments and Outlook
Air Forces of the Americas: Ready for Disaster Response. From April 3-12, the Argentine Air Force’s (FAA, in Spanish) 4th Air Brigade, located in Mendoza province, hosted the humanitarian assistance exercise Cooperation VI (Cooperación VI). Thirteen member nations of the System of Cooperation among the American Air Forces (SICOFAA, in Spanish) participated in the international virtual training event... Read more