March 31, 2017

What happened this week?

Mexico.

1. Softening ground could cause Huixquilucan landslide. Affected 6 workers, of whom 2 died; another is missing and three are being treated for injuries...Read more
2. Piura in emergency: This Monday saw a new overflow of the river Piura and this has caused that diverse sectors of the city are affected. The historic center, Hospital Cayetano Heredia and the National University of Piura are just some of the points affected...Read more

United States.

1. The National Weather Service has confirmed that five tornadoes touched down in Arkansas during the weekend. Meteorologist Chris Buonanno said the most damaging tornado was an EF2 that touched down at the Pulaski-Faulkner county line Friday night, destroying several mobile homes and injuring six people...Read more
2. The National Weather Service confirms that a tornado touched down in southwest Houston this morning. They determined the tornado was an EF-1 on the rating scale, which designates EF-0 as the weakest and EF-5 as the strongest...Read more
3. Earthquake rumbles northern Oklahoma. At approximately 10:37 a.m. March 29 a preliminary 4.4 magnitude earthquake was recorded six miles east of Medford near Deer Creek in Grant County. By 11:30 a.m. the earthquake was downgraded to a 4.1 magnitude...Read more

Interesting Facts

A Parametric Flood Control Method for Dams with Gate-Controlled Spillways. The study presents a method which can be used to define real-time operation rules for gated spillways (named the K-Method). The K-Method is defined to improve the performance of the Volumetric Evaluation Method (VEM), by adapting it to the particular conditions of the basin, the reservoir, or the spillway...Read more

Global disaster events resulted in $54bn of insured losses in 2016. The findings show that there were 327 disasters events last year, 191 of which were natural catastrophes, and 136 were man-made, with North America accounting for half the global insured losses...Read more

Peru: Disaster relief funds sit unused as floods wreak havoc. Floods and landslides are nothing unusual during Peruvian summers so the national disaster relief program should not have failed across the country. There is no reason, save a lack of unified political will...Read more

What drought? Sierra Nevada snowpack at 164 percent of normal. On Tuesday, the statewide Sierra snowpack stood at 164 percent of its historic average, a massive accumulation of new water. It’s the largest snowpack since 2011, when it was 171 percent of normal on April 1...Read more

 

What's new in Disaster Risk Reduction?

Don’t forget refugees and migrants when tackling risk. A special session of the European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction spotlighted their vulnerabilities in the face of natural and human-induced hazards, but underlined that they also have an important role to play in curbing impacts...Read more

Don’t sideline women from disaster risk reduction. Sidelining half of society is completely wrongheaded, Ms. Hiba Qasas, Chief, Crisis Prevention, Preparedness and Response at UN Women, told a special session of the European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction, which runs from Sunday to Tuesday...Read more

How can the hydropower sector and the Red Cross work together to protect flood-prone communities? The Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre has developed an innovative mechanism to predict and prepare for flood risks, which will be presented at a special session during the 2017 World Hydropower Congress...Read more

People are the core of disaster risk reduction. People and their communities must be at the heart of efforts to reduce the impacts of natural and human-induced hazards, senior officials told Europe’s annual disaster risk summit today...Read more