A disaster-weary globe will be hit harder in the coming years by even more catastrophes colliding in an interconnected world, a United Nations report issued Monday says.
If current trends continue the world will go from around 400 disasters per year in 2015 to an onslaught of about 560 catastrophes a year by 2030, the scientific report by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction said.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — President Joe Biden opened a two-day visit to the Pacific Northwest by focusing on improvements planned for the runway and roof of the airport where he landed Thursday, rather than any of the region's traditional, natural attractions.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military bases in the Arctic and sub-Arctic are failing to prepare their installations for long-term climate change as required, even though soaring temperatures and melting ice already are cracking base runways and roads and worsening flood risks up north, the Pentagon's watchdog office said Friday.
GENEVA (AP) — The chief of the United Nations announced a project Wednesday to put every person on Earth in range of early weather-warning systems within five years as natural disasters have grown more powerful and frequent due to climate change.
“Violeta,” by Isabel Allende. (Random House)
Chilean writer Isabel Allende's latest novel is “Violeta,” an epic tale that transports readers across a century of South American history, through economic collapse, dictatorship and natural disasters like an earthquake and a hurricane.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Their state budgets flush with cash, Democratic and Republican governors alike want to spend some of the windfall on projects aimed at slowing climate change and guarding against its consequences, from floods and wildfires to dirty air.
BERLIN (AP) — Damage wrought by Hurricane Ida in the U.S. state of Louisiana and the flash floods that hit Europe last summer helped make 2021 one of the most expensive years for natural disasters, reinsurance company Munich Re said Monday.
LOUISVILLE, Colorado (AP) — Rex and Barba Hickman’s home of 23 years near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains has been reduced to a blackened heap by the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Monday that he will travel to Kentucky on Wednesday to view damage from last week's devastating tornadoes that killed at dozens of people and displaced thousands more.
TOKYO (AP) — Massive amounts of volcanic pumice pebbles spewed from an undersea volcano in the Pacific Ocean have been piling up on southern Japanese coasts, damaging ports and fishing boats, and prompting the central government to establish a task force to deal with the unwanted arrivals as a natural disaster, officials said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Earth's warming and resulting natural disasters are creating a more dangerous world of desperate leaders and peoples, the Biden administration said Thursday in the federal government's starkest assessments yet of security and migration challenges facing the United States as the climate worsens.
Emergency preparedness experts recommend that you have a “go bag” and a “stay bin” for disasters: kits with supplies to help you survive a few days if you have to evacuate your home or shelter in place.
The White House is asking Congress to approve an additional $24 billion in spending to handle the costs of Hurricane Ida and other natural disasters, as well as $6.4 billion for the resettlement of evacuees from Afghanistan to help with transportation, government processing and public health screenings.
STATELINE, Nev. (AP) — As fearful Lake Tahoe residents packed up belongings and fled a raging wildfire burning toward the California-Nevada border, some encountered an unexpected obstacle: price gouging.
Natural disasters can upend lives in an instant, but unwinding the financial damage can take many months. Still, those affected have many sources of help.
Here’s how you can get help and be strategic with your resources as you begin to rebuild after a disaster.
A decade after a Vermont teenager disappeared as Tropical Storm Irene was bearing down on the state, his mother is still hoping someone will be able to answer the question about what happened to him.
NEW DELHI (AP) — An Indian rocket failed in its attempt Thursday to put a satellite into orbit to provide real-time images used to monitor cyclones and other potential natural disasters.
A technical fault occurred in the third and final ignition stage shortly after the rocket was launched from the space center in Sriharikota in southern India, the country's space agency said.
ARKITSA, Greece (AP) — Firefighters and residents battled into the night Monday for a seventh day against a massive fire on Greece's second-largest island as the nation endured what the prime minister described as “a natural disaster of unprecedented proportions.”
SHADDADI, Syria (AP) — In the searing 108-degree heat, far from his Louisiana health care business, Army Col. Scott Desormeaux and his soldiers are on a dusty base near Syria’s northern border, helping Syrian rebel forces battle Islamic State militants and keeping an eye on Russian troops in the region.
ATLANTA (AP) — A company that estimates damage from natural disasters says insured losses on land from Hurricane Elsa will be around $290 million.
About $240 million of that was from wind and storm surge in the U.S., while damage on Caribbean islands totaled about $50 million, Boston-based Karen Clark & Co.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday that his administration needs to “bring every resource to bear" to deal with natural disasters as huge swaths of the country have already endured extreme weather with the summer season just starting.
PHOENIX (AP) — Extreme temperatures like the ones blistering the American West this week aren't just annoying, they're deadly.
The record-breaking temperatures this week are a weather emergency, scientists and health care experts say, with heat responsible for more deaths in the U.S.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Norwegian authorities said Tuesday they have given up hope of finding survivors of a landslide that swept away homes in a residential area almost a week ago, killing seven people...
Spending her life in Los Angeles, Morgan Andersen knows natural disasters all too well. In college, an earthquake shook her home hard...
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Coronavirus restrictions that have significantly limited his public appearances...
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An investigation into Australia’s catastrophic wildfire season on Friday recommended greater efforts to forecast the impacts of climate change on specific parts of the country, warning fire behavior was becoming more extreme...
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic and a tightened deadline, the Census Bureau must now contend with several natural disasters as wildfires and hurricanes disrupt the final weeks of the nation's once-a-decade headcount...
Another record wildfire season in the West put climate change atop the presidential campaign agenda Monday...
The fires consuming the forests of California and Oregon and darkening the skies over San Francisco and Portland are also damaging a regional economy already singed by the coronavirus outbreak.
Wildfires are destroying property, running up huge losses for property insurers and putting a strain on economic activity along the West Coast that could linger for a year or more.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has visited typhoon-stricken areas in the northeast, fired a top official there and promised to send 12,000 workers from Pyongyang for recovery efforts, state media reported Sunday...
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — House Speaker Clay Schexnayder sought Friday to stall an ongoing effort by his fellow Republicans to revoke Gov...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Woodrow Wilson was more focused on the end of World War I than a flu virus that was making its way around the globe, ultimately sickening hundreds of thousands of Americans, including the president himself...
NEW YORK (AP) — As an Arizonan, Gregory Cohen has never had to stock up ahead of a hurricane or other natural disaster...
Fiercer and more frequent natural disasters in recent years have many homeowners re-evaluating their landscaping...
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — Thousands of people knelt in prayer in Indonesia's Aceh province at ceremonies Thursday marking the 15th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, one of modern history's worst natural disasters...
TIRANA, Albania (AP) — In the initial hours after a deadly pre-dawn earthquake struck Albania, pancaking buildings and trapping dozens of sleeping people beneath the rubble, the country’s neighbors sprang into action...
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California regulators opened a formal investigation Wednesday into preemptive power outages that blacked out large parts of the state in October, drawing strong rebukes from public officials and residents who said the shut-offs were too broad and poorly executed...