AFRICA – An unnamed UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s representative in Kenya has said to the Associated Press that the situation in Somalia could become “simply unbearable” in the coming weeks if people continue to abandon their homes in search of food.
The food crisis in the Horn of Africa is escalating, with 12 million people in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda requiring emergency assistance, said FAO.
Parts of southern Somalia are suffering from famine.
Over the past year, the region has faced two poor rainy seasons, resulting in one of the driest years since 1950. In addition, high local cereal prices, excessive livestock mortality, conflict and restricted humanitarian access in some areas is worsening the situation for Somalis.
A high-level operational meeting has been called for 18 August 2011 at FAO’s Rome headquarters to agree on urgent measures in response to the worsening crisis in the Horn of Africa.
Links to: FAO, the Associated Press
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The UN High Commissioner for Refugees FRiday 8 July called on governments and other donors to come up with $136.3 million in emergency funds to help the rapidly growing number of Somali refugees. The funds should cover the needs of some 90,000 new refugees heading to Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. They are fleeing what the UNHCR calls “deteriorating conditions and growing displacement from Somalia” due to drought and fighting.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The death toll has risen to 54 in Jiangxi province alone in eastern China as welcome rains have caused serious flooding in some areas, following a months-long drought that parched much of central and southern China. Some 4.81 million people are affected by the floods, reports Xinhua, with 21 people dead in Guizhou province.
The country has been pounded by storms this week: Beijing recorded “1,000 thunderstrikes” late Tuesday and early Wednesday says the news agency.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 60-day drought in the lower reaches of the Yangtse River in China is set to continue, the country’s meteorological service said Sunday evening, 29 May. Rainfall in the area since January has been 40-60 percent less than in 2010, and no rain is expected in the next few days. More than 35 million people are affected by the dry weather, which has so far caused economic losses of 15 billion yuan ($2.3 billion), reports Xinhua, which notes that more than 4 million people are having trouble finding drinking water.
“China’s two largest fresh water lakes – Dongting Lake in Hunan and Poyang Lake in Jiangxi – are both drying up dramatically” and the price of vegetables is soaring, with fears that inflation in May will rise sharply as a result of the drought.
Last week the government began released enormous quantities of water, 5bn m3 a day, for irrigation and drinking water, from the Three Gorges dam, cutting back its capacity to generate power. The drought is the worst in 50 years in the region.
The Yangste is Asia’s longest river.
Earlier in May, shipping traffic on the Yangtse became problematic because of the low water level. A 140-mile stretch above Wuhan was closed 12 May to avoid further problems.
Links to other sites: China Post, Guardian, Reuters
Swiss forest fires: prevention is the best solution (shown: history of fire hydrants, Zurich, ©2011 Ellen Wallace)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A dozen bush fires have been sparked in canton Vaud in the past week, mostly started by negligence, from cigarette butts and cooking fires not put out properly, police warn.
The canton has had a ban since 15 April on lighting fires closer than 10 metres from forests, woods, hedges, grasslands and reedbeds. Small amounts of rain fell over the weekend in some areas, but the largest amount recorded was only 10 cm, far short of what is needed to end the record April dry spell.
Cantons Graubuenden and Ticino both had sizeable forest fires in the past few days, reports TSR, with 2,000m2 burning under a ski lift in the commune of Celerina and 3,000m2 burning in the area of Maggia, in Ticino.
In the first case a discarded cigarette butt is suspected of causing the fire that took several hours to put out, using three helicopters, with 60 firefighters involved.
Meteoalarm: Germany has red danger zones Tuesday while Switzerland blissfully green
Early afternoon 13 July: drought and fire danger warnings for southern Alps in Switzerland (source: Meteoalarm/WMO)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – A beta version of a widget for a tropical storm warning system has just gone live for three locations in Asia and it will soon be available to other countries’ national weather systems, to adopt for their own storm alerts. The widget (ed. note: for Microsoft systems only) is being tested for Hong Kong, Macau and Guam, according to Geneva-based WMO (World Meteorological Organization), which is home to Severe Weather Information Centre (SWIC), of which the new service, SWIdget, is a part. SWIdget will allow local and international users to access nearly real-time data about storms, says the WMO.
The new service is complementary to a European-wide online service that provides an early warning service for severe weather in the region. If you think a storm is headed your way in Europe, you can check Meteoalarm online, the European-wide warning system
The new beta version service “aims to help users access severe weather warnings easily so that they can take suitable precautionary measures well in time,” says the WMO. It was developed by the Hong Kong Observatory on behalf of the WMO.
SWIC is a WMO website that provides official tropical cyclone information sourced from national weather and hydraulic offices in different regions of the world. It also provides official observation data around the world for heavy rains and thunderstorms.
SWIdget can be downloaded from the SWIC website.
WMO says temperatures up, also calls for drought indices
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Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Climate change and global warming are under discussion in chilly Copenhagen this week, and in Geneva the World Meteorological Organization is contributing its share of scientific data to heat up the debate. The WMO late Tuesday published its latest report on global temperature changes, which shows that “2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850.”
A two-year drought across the countries of Eastern Africa and the Horn of Africa is taking its toll on the most vulnerable people: subsistence farmers and pastoralists. In Kenya’s northwestern Turkana region, the worst drought in 40 years is forcing people to sell weakened animals at below market rates in order to survive. Others are moving into emergency feeding centres.
The UN’s World Food Program is feeding one in six Kenyans, almost 4 million people, and says it needs $300 million to feed them for the next six months. Ethiopia’s government has launched an international appeal for $175 million in aid to head off the crisis. AllAfrica, BBC, Wall Street Journal
Drought but mainly poor water management is causing the Euphrates River to dry up and it is now about half the size it was just a few years ago, writes Campbell Robertson in a New York Times feature. One result is that Iraq has increased its grain imports, but the issue is also causing tensions to rise between Iraq and its neighbours, notably Turkey and Syria.
Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, is calling it the worst natural disaster on record, with the Sydney Morning Herald reporting 108 people dead Sunday night Swiss time, including veteran TV news reader from Melbourne, Brian Naylor. Twenty-six fires are raging in Victoria and police suspect arsonists of starting several of them. In China, the government is allocating $12 billion for drought aid with the worst drought in decades affecting 4.4 million people and 10.7 million hectares, reports Xinhua.
