Disasters

"Many of us will have felt the grip of claustrophobic isolation over the past year, but the lawyer Steven Donziger has experienced an extreme, very personal confinement as a pandemic arrived and then raged around him in New York City."

"A mine tailings dam planned for a seismically unstable area of Sumatra’s rainforest would be at high risk of failure, experts warn. The dam’s collapse would be a disaster, they say, releasing a wall of slurry that would engulf and bury Indigenous villages and their inhabitants."

"Wildfire experts in Northern New Mexico are urging the community to prepare for a hot, dry summer with potentially worse conditions than previous years, and they say the idea of a wildfire “season” is slowly dissipating as climate change makes the state’s forests more susceptible to blazes year-round."

"Public transit offers a simple way for cities to lower greenhouse gas emissions, but the pandemic has pushed ridership, and revenue, off a cliff in many big systems."

"Wildfire smoke was associated with a far greater number of pediatric respiratory care visits than other sources of airborne fine particles, according to a new study, even when wildfires were less severe."

"In Houston’s poorest neighborhoods, an unfamiliar winter storm stoked a familiar anguish, one fueled by recurring floods and what residents see as a pattern of neglect."

"Australian authorities issued fresh flood warnings and evacuation orders on Tuesday as torrential rains again pummelled several parts of the country, sweeping away homes, roads and livestock in the worst downpour in more than half a century."