A swarm of flies hangs in the air in Karachi, Pakistan, on 7 September 2019. Swarms of flies, water-borne illnesses, and rivers of sewage have brought Karachi to its knees this rainy season after decades of mismanagement turned the commercial capital into one of the world’s least liveable cities. Photo: AFP

Flies overwhelm Pakistan’s Karachi after monsoon floods garbage and sewage – “We live in hell”

By Ashraf Khan 7 September 2019 (AFP) – Swarms of flies are descending on Pakistan’s commercial capital in what residents say are record numbers this rainy season, adding to the misery of Karachi’s monsoon “hell”. Heavy rains have inundated the sprawling port city of nearly 20 million people for weeks, overwhelming shoddy drainage systems clogged […]

Grand Bahama island before and after Hurricane Dorian made landfall on 2 September 2019. In the after photo, the yellow lines mark where the land was before the storm flooded the area. Photo: Google Earth / ICEYE / CNN

Hurricane Dorian leaves neighborhoods flattened and homes shredded in the Bahamas – “We are in the midst of one of the greatest national crises in our country’s history”

4 September 2019 (CBS News) – As Hurricane Dorian accelerates up the Florida coast, the magnitude of the storm’s destruction in the Bahamas is coming into view. Parts of the island nation are in ruins. Much of Grand Bahama Island is underwater. Two more deaths were confirmed overnight, bringing the official total now to seven. The country’s prime minister […]

Julia Aylen wades through waist deep water carrying her pet dog as she is rescued from her flooded home during Hurricane Dorian in Freeport, Bahamas, Tuesday, 3 September 2019. Practically parking over the Bahamas for a day and a half, Dorian pounded away at the islands Tuesday in a watery onslaught that devastated thousands of homes, trapped people in attics and crippled hospitals. Photo: Tim Aylen / AP Photo

Humanitarian crisis unfolds in hurricane-stricken Bahamas – “What we are hearing lends credence to the fact that this has been a catastrophic storm and a catastrophic impact”

By Ramon Espinosa, Dánica Coto, and Michael Weissenstein 3 September 2019 FREEPORT, Bahamas (AP) – Practically parking over the Bahamas for a day and a half, Hurricane Dorian pounded away at the islands Tuesday in a watery onslaught that devastated thousands of homes, trapped people in attics and crippled hospitals. At least five deaths were […]

Satellite view of Hurricane Dorian making landfall on the Bahamas, 1 September 2019. This view is one of the strongest landfalls ever captured on satellite. Photo: Dakota Smith / NCAR

Hurricane Dorian strikes Bahamas with record fury as Category 5 storm – “The winds are howling like we’ve never, ever experienced before”

By Ramón Espinosa 1 September 2019 McLEAN’S TOWN CAY, Bahamas (AP) – Hurricane Dorian struck the northern Bahamas as a catastrophic Category 5 storm Sunday, its record 185 mph winds ripping off roofs, overturning cars and tearing down power lines as hundreds hunkered down in schools, churches and shelters. Dorian slammed into Elbow Cay in […]

Projected change in average surface temperature in Phoenix, Arizona between 2000 and 2050. Graphic: Vox

Can we survive extreme heat? Humans have never lived on a planet this hot, and we’re totally unprepared for what’s to come

By Jeff Goodell 27 August 2019 (Rolling Stone) – On a scorching day in downtown Phoenix, when the temperature soars to 115°F or higher, heat becomes a lethal force. Sunshine assaults you, forcing you to seek cover. The air feels solid, a hazy, ozone-soaked curtain of heat. You feel it radiating up from the parking […]

Infrared satellite image of Tropical Storm Dorian at 2305Z (7:05 pm EDT) Tuesday, 27 August 2019. Photo: tropicaltidbits.com

Tropical Storm Dorian heads for Puerto Rico, Bahamas and Florida could be next

By Bob Henson 27 August 2019 (Weather Underground) – Nudged on all sides by a grab bag of influences, Tropical Storm Dorian has held its own, working its way into the eastern Caribbean after passing near Barbados and over St. Lucia. Dorian is likely to move across Puerto Rico as a tropical storm on Wednesday […]

Women fetch water from an opening made at a dried-up lake in Chennai, India, on 11 June 2019. Photo: P. Ravikumar / Reuters

India is running out of water – “If nothing changes, and fast, things will get much worse, with severe water scarcity on the horizon for hundreds of millions”

By Bill Spindle and Gareth Phillips 19 August 2019 LEH, India (The Wall Street Journal) – The Ladakh region of northern India is one of the world’s highest, driest inhabited places. For centuries, meltwater from winter snows in the Himalayan mountains sustained the tiny villages dotting this remote land. Now, like many other places in […]

Satellite view of Chennai Lake as it dries up, from 5 Feb 2019 to 15 July 2019. Photo: Copernicus / FT

No end to crisis in sight as drought grips India’s Chennai – “The civil strife in this country will start from water, not from religion”

By Stephanie Findlay 3 August 2019 CHENNAI (Financial Times) – Murugan Sundaramurthy’s water business is buoyant. His fleet of tanker trucks have been fanning out across the countryside around Chennai for two decades, sucking water from boreholes and delivering it to homes to quench the city’s thirst. But demand today is as high as he […]

This 25 January 2019 photo shows water tanks containing contaminated water that has been treated at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, northeastern Japan. The utility company operating Fukushima's tsunami-wrecked nuclear power plant said Friday, 9 August 2019 it will run out of space for tanks to store massive amounts of treated but still contaminated water in three years, adding pressure for the government and the public to reach consensus on what to do with the water. Photo: Kyodo News / AP

Fukushima nuclear plant will soon run out of space for radioactive water – 1.37 million ton limit will be reached in the summer of 2022

By Mari Yamaguchi 8 August 2019 TOKYO (AP) – The utility company operating Fukushima’s tsunami-devastated nuclear power plant said Friday it will run out of space to store massive amounts of contaminated water in three years, adding pressure on the government and the public to reach a consensus on what to do with it. Three […]

An artist, moved by what was left behind of his friend's home after a wild fire, used the site as a canvas. Shane Grammer said he was devastated to find out how many people he knows were left homeless by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California. His friend, Shane Edwards, agreed to let him create a mural on what remained of his burned-down home. After three hours, Grammer had created a striking image of a beautiful woman that is giving people hope on 4 January 2019. Photo: Inside Edition

“Sticker shock” for California wildfire areas as insurance rates double, and policies are dropped – “It’s time to address the impact that more severe weather is having on Americans instead of fighting about climate change”

By Dale Kasler, Ryan Sabalow, and Phillip Reese 18 July 2019 (The Sacramento Bee) – Jennifer Burt knows she lives in a fire-prone community. That’s why she’s done everything she can to fire-proof her home in Meadow Vista, in the bushy, densely wooded Placer County foothills, even installing a sprinkler system on the roof. Yet […]

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