May 25, 2012

Recent Natural Events

Honduras: Floods and Landslides - May 2012

Around 500 people were evacuated in Trojes in the region of El Paraíso, after floods caused damages to more than 100 houses. Read

Low  Peru temperatures kill 94 children since January

Nearly 100 children under the age of five died of pneumonia between January and April in Peru due to a cold wave that swept through the country's Andean region, the Health Ministry said Wednesday. Read

Hurricane Bud strengthens in Pacific as Mexico prepares

Hurricane Bud strengthened as it churned northwest in the Pacific, threatening the Mexican coast with high winds, surf and heavy rain through the weekend. Read

Icy waters flood villages in Alaska; Wildfires in areas of U.S.

Huge sheets of ice are clogging the Kuskokwim River in Alaska, flooding villages and forcing residents to evacuate by air to the town of Bethel in southwest Alaska. Meanwhile, multiple wildfires are burning across the country. Read

Other Disasters Related News

Travel Safely during Memorial Day Weekend

The Memorial Day holiday weekend is here, and for many it means getting on the road for the first long holiday weekend of the summer. The American Red Cross offers travel safety tips to help you and your loved ones have a great weekend.  Read

Action needed now  to prepare for severe drought

 The results from 19 different state-of-the-art climate models project extreme and persistent drought conditions for almost all of Mexico, the Midwestern United States and most of Central America. Read

Federal forecasters predict a near-normal hurricane season

The federal government is predicting a near-normal hurricane season in the Atlantic this year: anywhere from four to eight hurricanes forecast. Read

Refugee farmers find solace in a floodplain

Refugees from Burundi and Nepal are working to re-establish agricultural fields next to the Winooski River in Vermont that were damaged by Tropical Storm Irene last year. Read

European Commission allocates €5 million to help flood victims in South America

An estimated 1.2 million people have been affected by heavy rains and flooding throughout the region. Hundreds of thousands of farmers lost their crops, and many families have been forced to flee their homes due to the high water and landslides. Entire areas are still submerged under water. Read

May 18, 2012

Recent Natural Events

Peru – heavy rains

Between January and 11 May 2012 intense rains have caused mudslides and overflowing of rivers, resulting in a death toll of 49 and affecting some 783,930 people, of which, more than 269,270 are homeless. Read

Worst flooding in 100 years hits Manaus, Brazil

Brazil's Amazon city of Manus has been hit by the worst flooding in 100 years, crippling the local economy and displacing thousands of families in the country's northwestern region. Read

Northern Brazil -  Worst drought in 50 years takes toll

A severe drought is affecting more than 1,100 towns in northeastern Brazil, where short water supplies have devastated farm output, endangering the lives of local people and their livestock. 'Water wars' are observed in rural areas. Read

Panama - seismic activity of magnitude 4.9 and depth 10.30Km Read

Other Disasters Related News

Looming drought in the Caribbean

In Guyana, Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud says that authorities have spent $1.2M to improve irrigation and to pump water into farmlands that are feeling the effects of largely absent year end rains. Read

Rebuilding Joplin a year after tornado

A year ago this week, miles of homes and businesses were flattened by the enormous multivortex storm, one of the worst recorded in U.S. history. Neighborhoods, schools and communities were literally blown away. Read

IOM Colombia hosts Fourth International Conference on Gender and Disasters

Delegates acknowledged the role of women in protecting the rights of children, elderly persons and people with disabilities and the limitations this situation poses to their response capacity and the possibility to migrate in search of work after an emergency. Read

Bolivian Civil Defense implements emergency recovery project

The 6 month project will cover the municipalities of Chipaya, El Choro, Toledo y Soracachi of the Department of Oruro, with a budget of 200,000 Euros. Read

Mexico -  Modernization of National Meteorological Service for improved Climate Change Adaptation

The National Meteorological Service (SMN, in Spanish) modernization plan includes activities such as institutional redesign, human resource recruitment and training, the installation of modernized infrastructure and improvements in the climate modeling tools used to generate weather forecasts and alerts. Read

May 11, 2012

Recent Natural Events

Brazil sends 500 troops to help Amazon flood victims

Brazil is deploying 500 troops, a field hospital and three Navy ships to help people hit by some of the worst flooding in decades in the Amazon.Read

COE: flash floods and mudslide warnings for 19 provinces – Dominican Republic

Due to possible floods and mudslides the Emergency Operations Center (COE) increased to 19 the number of provinces under alert, 11 of which are on yellow alert and eight on green. Read

Other Disasters Related News

Paraguay: Farmers Demand Food Assistance

The national emergency food assistance scheme, initiated by the government in January, follows an eight month period of drought which has seriously affected the agricultural sector. Read

Trickling back to live among, and off of, a hill town’s ruins

This town of 2,900 people was destroyed shortly before Christmas in 2010 in a natural disaster that was remarkable even in a country that has known its share of catastrophic mudslides, floods and volcanic eruptions. Read

Sugar, rice sectors severely impacted by heavy rainfall – Agri Minister

According to Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, these two industries have faced a number of setbacks which resulted in significant losses in production. Read

Mexican airport reopens after volcano activity

The airport in the central Mexican state of Puebla reopened on Thursday night after it was closed briefly by an ash cloud from a nearby volcano, said an official from the local government. Read

Did you know? The Caribbean and Central America had:

6 earthquakes today

18 earthquakes in the past 7 days

65 earthquakes in the past month Read

May 04, 2012

Recent Natural Events

Peru - Heavy rains cause more than 50 deaths since November

Flooding and landslides caused by heavy rains in Peru have caused the deaths of 53 people over the past six months, according to the country’s National Civil Defense Institute, INDECI. Read

Nicaragua monitors microseismic activity Increase in Volcano

Nicaraguan Experts reported Sunday more seismic activity at Masaya volcano, about 20 kilometers south of Managua, with an increase in expulsions of sulfur gases, which keeps the disaster warning system in high alert. Read

Mexico: Popocatépetl volcano activity update: ongoing ash and steam emissions, occasional explosions

CENAPRED reported that gas-and-steam plumes, occasionally containing ash, rose from Popocatépetl during 25-29 April. Read

Other Disasters Related News

Colombia takes step in the right direction with new disaster law

 A new National Disaster Risk Management law has been approved by authorities of Colombia, significantly shifting the positioning of the National Response and Prevention System. Read

Independent Review of the U.S. Government Response to the Haiti Earthquake - Final Report

The ultimate objective of the study is to improve the U.S. Government response to global catastrophes by informing decision makers about the strengths and shortcomings of the Haiti response, and by offering recommendations about how best to organize response to major humanitarian crises. Read

Haiti - Lack of data prevents measurement of aid effectiveness

Vijaya Ramachandran and Julie Walz of the Center for Global Development provided a nice overview of the U.S government’s review of its Haiti earthquake response. They found that, while the review includes “some frank and enlightening assessments of USG [U.S. government] response and coordination,” it contained “very little discussion of aid accountability.” Read

Earthquake Plan for Mexico: An Example to Follow

The Federal Plan for Preparedness and Response to a Large-scale Earthquake or Tsunami in Mexico (also called the Earthquake Plan), will provide support and consistency to the implementation of all institutional response plans and the collective initiatives of civil society and the private sector to improve the response capacity and execute response actions in case of earthquakes. Read

Gulf of Mexico oil spill: BP wins victory over US government as trial is postponed until 2013

BP has won a legal fight with the US government after a judge ruled that the trial to apportion blame for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill will not happen until 2013. Read