February 10, 2017

What happened this week?

 United States.

1. The "atmospheric river" returned Tuesday to Northern California, where snow piled up in the Sierra Nevada and coastal riverbanks were overwhelmed, flooding rural towns ... Read more
2. Nine tornadoes were reported Tuesday in Louisiana and Mississippi -- four of which have been confirmed -- damaging property, injuring at least 31 people and prompting Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards to declare a state of emergency in the state... Read more

Colombia. A shallow, 5.6-magnitude earthquake rattled residents of Colombia's largest city on Monday, leading office workers to evacuate buildings and forcing the city's airport to temporarily close... Read more

Peru. Civil defense authorities in Peru say that flooding has affected over 90,000 people in the northern region of Piura since heavy rain began to fall on 30 January ... Read more

Interesting Facts

Gloria Knolls Slide (GKS), the largest submarine landslide. An investigation at Great Barrier Reef margin of north-eastern Australia. The GKS forms a 20 km along-slope and 8 km across-slope indentation in the margin, extending from 250 to 1350 m depth...Read more

Earthquake early-warning systems finally becoming a reality. The technology already exists and could give West Coast residents up to 60 seconds of warning time, depending on how far they are from the epicenter of the quake...Read more

Drought identified as key to severity of West Nile virus epidemics. The study analyzed 15 years of data on human West Nile virus infections from across the United States and found that epidemics were much larger in drought years and in regions that had not suffered large epidemics in the past...Read more

 What's new in Disaster Risk Reduction?

How can the world reduce disaster losses for the poor? The World Bank has found that disasters cost the global economy $520 billion per annum when account is taken of the true impact on the poor of earthquakes, climate change, storms, floods and other hazards... Read more

Risk-prone Philippines steps up urban resilience. The Philippines, one of the most disaster risk-prone nations in the world, is stepping up efforts to ensure that its communities can withstand natural and human-induced hazards...Read more