US Navy helicopter surveys flooded areas of Thailand's capital, Bangkok
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurance companies, has third quarter net income of $1.3 billion, a 118 percent increase over the same period a year earlier, the company announced Thursday 3 November. The strong performance was due to a combination of what the company calls “a moderate natural catastrophe experience and positive one-offs.
That situation could change in the fourth quarter of 2011, with conntinuing flooding in Thailand taking a heavy toll on manufacturing in that country. Swiss Re says that with the floods still running it is not yet possible to estimate the damage.
Property and casualty alone contributed $1 billion to the financial results, thanks in part to the better than expected natural catastrophe business, but asst management business was responsible for $1.2b.
“Given the heightened volatility in financial markets as a result of economic uncertainties, Swiss Re has and will continue to maintain a conservative asset management strategy. Swiss Re’s exposure to sovereign debt issued by peripheral eurozone countries remains very low at USD 74 million. The exposure to Greek sovereign debt is nil,” a company statement notes.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The massive flooding that has hit Thailand now threatens the capital, Bangkok, and its governor, Sukhumbhand Paribatra, has ordered the city to open its floodgates to let water run out to the sea through city canals. There are fears in some government quarters that the system may leak, causing flooding in the city itself, from the worst storms and flooding in 50 years. The Bangkok Post reports Thursday that the government has decided to “sacrifice” the eastern suburbs in its attempt to save the inner city and financial heart of Bangkok.
Links to other sites: Bangkok Post, CNN, TVNZ
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The governor of Bangkok offered what the Bangkok Post called “a testy response” Thursday 13 October after the minister for science and technology caused panic by issuing an evacuation order for northern Bangkok and nearby areas. The order was based on a misunderstanding and was corrected, but not before damage was done. The Bangkok Post reports that “Bangkok governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra said last night city residents should listen to him about when they should evacuate their homes. ‘Please listen to me and me alone. I will say when we should evacuate. Please believe me and only me. Don’t believe others.’”
The floods are the worst in 50 years, the result of typhoons and monsoon rains that have battered much of Asia. They have killed at least 280 people in Thailand since July, reports AP. The ancient city of Ayutthaya north of Bangkok has been badly hit and evacuations continue there.
“The three-month-old disaster has crippled manufacturing hubs in central provinces and destroyed more than 10 percent of rice farms in the world’s biggest shipper of the grain,” Bloomberg reports. But the country’s prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, says that Bangkok with its nearly 10 million people, will escape the flooding, with the army widening canals to drain more water outside the city.
Links to other sites: AP, Bangkok Post, Bloomberg, Thai Visa
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – United Nations groups based in Geneva, already under enormous pressure to meet demands for help in the Horn of Africa, are increasing their efforts to help Pakistan’s flood victims. Pakistan has been hit hard by floods for the second year in a row.
Some 6 million people have been affected by this year’s flooding in the southern province of Sindh alone and, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 1.3 million homes have been destroyed and 428,000 people are living in camps.
The IOM says it has distributed the last of 18,000 emergency kits it pre-positioned in Sindh, one of the worst-hit areas. The kits, with two plastic tarpaulins, 2 shovels, a bucket and a kitchen set each, are providing help to 126,000 people.
The IOM is appealing to international donors for $14.6 million in aid to supply basic food and housing needs and it is also appealing for $2.2 million in aid for its local partner, Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority.
The flooding is mainly in the south of the country, affecting several provinces but with Sindh one of the most affected areas. Aid workers say it is taking several days for provisions to reach the area overland from Peshawar in the country’s northwest. Flood victims are having trouble finding enough dry ground to set up emergency tents. Details, Pakistan Shelter Cluster: http://www.shelterpakistan.org
UNHCR, the office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, says several social problems are on the rise as a direct result of the crisis, such as domestic violence and child labour.
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.
Towns and cities prepare as “Triple Crown of Disasters” swollen river rolls their way
Source: wikipedia (click on image to view larger)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The states of Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas are sandbagging and scrambling to build up dikes in a desperate effort to prepare for massive flooding at the Mississippi River rolls their way after its crest Tuesday night 10 May in Memphis, Tennesse, came close to a 74-year-old record.
The US Weather Service is calling it the third hit in the 2011 Triple Crown of Disasters, “consisting of continuing drought and wildfires in the west, a record-breaking tornado outbreak in the South and record flooding along the Lower Mississippi River.”
The river, North America’s longest at 3,750km for the whole system, crested at 47.8 feet (nearly 15 metres) in Memphis, a bit shy of its 1937 record.
Cities to the north of Memphis are clearing up, filling new potholes and cleaning out sewers after the river flooded their levies and banks as it headed south.
But in Louisiana, still recovering from Hurricane Katrina in 2008 in some areas, fear runs high, reports CNN, and in Natchez, Mississippi, where the river is expected to crest at 64 feet in 10 days, residents are being evacuated and waiting for the massive flood to spread over the land, which is much flatter than further north.
Links to other sites: CNN, Memphis Commercial Appeal, KCRG- US National Weather Service
Vaud a laggard in mapping flood dangers
Swiss communes, January 2011 state of 10-year natural dangers mapping project, "floods" (source, federal environment office)
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Landslides, falling rocks, avalanches and floods: the bulk of the work is done for some dangers, but not all in the 10-year Swiss project to carefully map risks for these natural dangers.
The project is scheduled to end by December 2011, but the federal government says some larger cantons, which have not been able to complete the work on time, will need until the end of 2013 to finish their work.
None of canton Vaud’s communes, for example, had completed their flood risk mapping by January 2011, when the federal map seen here was established to show the state of work.
Dark green indicates “available and integrated into the commune’s development plans” while light green means only “available”, yellow is “work en route”, orange “partly available”, red “not available” and gray “not necessary”.
The natural dangers mapping project is part of a larger environmental mapping project for Switzerland, with much of the information already available on an interactive map that can be accessed in English. Instructions for using it are available in French, German and Italian, but not English.
How to use the federal environmental maps
If you want details about your commune, for example, start by going to “search” at the top left, put in the name of your canton, then commune. Then select the “maps” tab next to the “search” one and tick boxes (but not all) you want to view for that area. Selecting Sion, which had a major earthquake several hundred years ago, then the maps for earthquakes, history and risks,
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Natural catastrophes and manmade economic disasters cost the world $218 billion in 2010, more than three times the cost in 2009, Swiss Re, the Zurich reinsurer, said 29 March.
The loss of lives, 308,000 people, was the highest since 1976 and far higher than the 2009 figure of 15,000 lives lost, worldwide.
Earthquakes alone accounted for one-third of the financial cost.
A number of severe catastrophes claimed huge numbers of lives: “the deadliest event in 2010 was the Haiti earthquake in January, which claimed more than 222 000 lives. Nearly 56 000 people died during the summer heatwave in Russia. The summer floods in China and Pakistan also resulted in over 6 200 deaths”, according to Swiss Re, which insures insurance companies.
The cost to the insurance industry was $40b for natural catastrophes and $3b for manmade disasters.
Ten events at more than $1 billion each:
“The two biggest insured losses were caused by earthquakes – the February earthquake in Chile (USD 8 billion) and the September earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand (USD 4.4 billion). The third costliest event was winter storm Xynthia in Western Europe, which led to insured losses of USD 2.8 billion. Three storms in the US and two storms in Australia also generated losses of over USD 1 billion.
“Property claims from the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico are estimated at USD 1 billion. Given the complexity of the claims, the latter figure is still subject to substantial uncertainty. The overall insurance loss is higher, as liability losses are not included [in the report].”
Current La Niña episode started in June 2010, expected to die down over next four months
Milton Road, Brisbane, Australia January 2011 - part of a collection of Brisbane flood photos on flickr by Eric Veland: www.flickr.com/photos/erikveland
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva has published data confirming that recent heavy rains that led to flooding in Australia are linked to a La Niña “episode” that began in June 2010.
Areas including Australia and Indonesia that have already been affected are warned by forecasters to expect more unusually heavy rain for the next one to two months before the episode dies down.
The WMO is a United Nations organization, whose member countries’ national weather and meteorological services use it to work together.
The WMO says that “during La Niña episodes rainfall is increased across the western equatorial Pacific, including northern Australia and Indonesia during December-February and the Philippines during June-August”.
Below average sea level pressure and above average sea surface temperature in some areas, coupled with La Niña “have led to much above average rainfall in parts of Australia, Indonesia and southeast Asia. This La Niña situation is also believed to be linked to above average rainfall in southern Africa, below average rainfall in eastern equatorial Africa, and below average rainfall in central southwest Asia and southeastern South America.”
It is the opposite of El Niño, which brings unusually warm ocean surface temperatures.” Both events disrupt the large-scale ocean-atmosphere circulation patterns in the tropics and have important consequences for weather and climate around the globe. Once established, they typically last for 9 months or more,” according to the WMO.
2010 equal to 2005 and 1998, confirms global warming trend
Extreme weather events listed but no direct link made
Australian desert (photo: ©2010 Peter Brodbeck, flickr)
(video, El Niño, La Niña) Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Those who thought 2010 was hotter than usual were right: it was one of the warmest years on record, sharing the top hot slot with 2005 and 1998, the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) said in Geneva 20 January.
But if you were sitting in Scandinavia or the eastern US in December 2010 you’ll be right in thinking you’ve just experienced exceptional cold, with parts of Norway and Sweden having temperatures -10C below normal.
Eastern Canada and Greenland had unusually warm weather in December, however.
Higher temperatures did not affect the world evenly, but 2010 was exceptionally warm in much of Africa, southern and western Asia, Greenland and Arctic Canada, “with many parts of these regions having their hottest years on record” since the start of what the WMO calls instrumental climate records.
Greenland's snow and ice suffered from unusually warm weather in Decembe 2010
“The 2010 data confirm the Earth’s significant long-term warming trend,” WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement. “The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998.”
The WMO is a United Nations organization that provides a place where member states’ national weather and meteorological services work together.
Arctic sea-cover at all-time low in December
Devastating floods in the Rio de Janeiro region in Brazil continue to take a high toll, with the number of deaths now well above 400 and expected to rise as rescuers find more bodies. Some 14,000 people are homeless and the country’s new president, Dilma Rousseff has promised US$400 million in aid to clean up and rebuild.
In other extreme weather news, Brisbane and the Queenlands area in Australia fear more rain is on the way, with a cyclone building up offshore while the massive damage from high waters of the past two weeks is assessed. Reuters reports that 12,000 homes have been destroyed and 118,000 buildings are without electricity. The World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, Switzerland 10 January confirmed that the heavy rains are part of the La Nina weather pattern.
In the Boston area and much of the rest of the northeastern US, heavy snows are threatening again, but schools and airports have re-opened after being closed for two days while the area dug itself out.
Links to other sites: Boston.com, Los Angeles Times, Reuters
Video, Boston.com
(video) Three days of heavy rains, with a normal month’s rainfall in 24 hours in the mountainous Serrana region north of Rio, has brought devastation to southern Brazil, with the official death toll now at 361. Most of those who died were in the mountains of Rio de Janeiro province where rivers gave way and washed away homes while people slept, but 13 died near Sao Paulo. Serrana is home to the populous cities of Petrópolis, Teresópolis and Nova Friburgo. The Guardian reports that thousands of people are missing.
Links to other sites: Reuters , Rio Times, Yahoo/AFP
ITNNews video
View Queensland flooding in a larger map
Bundaberg, north of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia, is bracing Wednesday for the highest flood level in 50 years, reports The Age, with waters expected to reach 8 metres. Several highways and bridges are closed on Australia’s east coast due to the floods from rivers swollen by heavy rains that followed tropical cyclone Tasha, which landed in the region last week.
The town of Theodore, population 350, which is 400 km northwest of Brisbane, had to be evacuated completely by military helicopters, reports AFP.
A series of floods and landslides in Asia have taken the lives of at least 100 people (figure updated Wednesday 6 October).
Most of the deaths occurred in Indonesia, where villages were struck by landslides resulting from days of torrential rains.
There have also been deaths reported in Vietnam, the Chinese island of Hainan where over 60,000 people had to be evacuated, and in West Papua where several provinces are isolated.
Additional details on: Yahoo news,
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The International Migration Organization in Geneva Monday 20 September launched a new, second major appeal to international donors, for help aiding victims of Pakistan’s ongoing flood crisis. The IOM is asking for $114 million in new funds to help the 20 million people affected by the country’s worst-ever flooding. It follows a August appeal for $38m for three-month emergency funds, of which £22m in pledges have come in, mainly from the US, UK, Canada, Sweden, Japan and the UN.
The new appeal covers projects to run through July 2011 and includes money for:
- Emergency and longer term shelter, and coordination of the Emergency Shelter Cluster ($70m)
- Community restoration, including debris removal and repair of damaged infrastructure ($26m)
- Staff and procurement support for the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) ($4m)
- Logistics and transport for aid agencies and the NDMA ($3m)
- Mass communications for disaster-affected populations ($3m)
- Emergency health care and restoration of primary health care ($2m)
- Distribution of tool kits to help people to restart their livelihoods and rebuild their houses ($2m)
- Displacement camp coordination and camp management ($2m)
- Prevention of human trafficking ($1m)
Details of IOM’s Pakistan funds appeal
Angelina Jolie, UNHCR ambassador, meets with villagers hit by Pakistan floods, 7 September 2010 (photo: ©2010 UNHCR / J Tanner)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Celebrity actress Angelina Jolie is making a strong appeal to the public not to forget about Pakistan’s millions of flood victims as the waters recede.
She is touring the country, for the fourth time since 2001, in her role as a UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) goodwill ambassador.
“It’s clear this crisis is far from over,” says Jolie. “People have lost everything: their homes, their belongings, their crops and cattle, and their livelihoods. Long after the cameras have gone, people will be struggling to rebuild their lives.”
Angelina Jolie, UNHCR ambassador, visiting KandaroII Camp in Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, 7 September 2010 (photo: ©2010 UNHCR / J Tanner)
Tuesday September 7 she met people who had been directly affected by the floods. She visited Mohib Banda, where some 70 per cent of the homes were destroyed or badly damaged by the swirling waters.”
“There was a small stream outside the broken homes. It was full of a mix of faeces, flies, old shoes and old clothes that had been recently washed into the water,” she noted.
Hundreds of people are feared dead in China’s far northwestern province of Gansu. At least 127 are confirmed dead as a river burst its banks and ripped through a town in Zhouqu county (map). Rescue workers are trying to free hundreds trapped under collapsed buildings and news reports say 1,300 people are missing.
Before the massive flooding in the north of the country in 2010, the Pakistan Red Cross and ICRC have been active in Pakistan in areas where fighting broke out in 2009: Swabi, North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan. An ICRC delegate interviews a woman in an IDP camp as part of the effort to help her restore contacts with her family (photo: ©2009 ICRC / M Von Bergen)
Update, Reuters video, 10:50 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – The sheer scale of flooding in Pakistan in the past week, and the damage caused by it, is daunting: more than 1,100 people have died, according to official sources, and 2.5 million people have been affected. The International Red Cross (ICRC) and the Pakistan National Red Crescent Society are scrambling to provide emergency relief, with more than 20,000 emergency rations for individuals provided in Balochistan and southern Fata (Federally Administered Tribal Areas), and more en route to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Balochistan.
Infrastructure washed away: delivery extremely difficult
But the scale of the flooding is such that delivering relief aid is extraordinarily difficult, says Geneva-based ICRC.
The heaviest floods in China in decades have caused more than twice the economic damage from flooding in any single year since 2000, new government figures show, and the rain continues to fall heavily in the southern part of the country with Hubei Province one of the worst-hit. The Three Gorges dam is sluicing huge amounts of water as the rising Yangtze pours more into the massive structure, but flooding is expected to peak at some point Tuesday 27 July, reports Xinhua.
The heaviest rainfall in several years in China is putting the new Three Gorges dam to the test. Tuesday 20 July the water flow on the Yangtze River’s upper reaches was monitored at 70,000 cubic metres per second, the highest ever. The dam can be seen sluicing water at an impressive 40,000 m3 per second in a Xinhua photo. The Chinese news agency reports that “The water level rose to 158.86 meters at 10 a.m. Friday, about 13.86 meters above the reservoir’s water-releasing level, said engineers of the reservoir, located in Yichang City, central Hubei Province. As of 2 p.m. Friday, the water level dropped to 158.83 meters and has remained largely stable since. The maximum capacity of the multibillion dollar reservoir is 175 meters.”
Colombia is suffering severe storms with heavy rains, particularly in Cali and Barraquilla. Several thousand people have been evacuated from their homes and material damage appears to be extensive.
Link to Columbia News
Reuters video
Brazil’s northeastern states of Pernambuco and Alagoas have been hard hit by floods that have killed 33 people, with hundreds missing. An estimated 40,000 homes were washed away, leaving 100,000 people homeless, regional officials say. In Alagoas, more than 1,000 people are missing. The Brazilian cabinet is holding an emergency meeting to review the situation.
Heavy rain in eastern and southern China that began 12 June has caused landslides and flash floods, killing scores of people, with unofficial figures of around 100 deaths. Chinese news agency Xinhua reports that “About 9.27 million people in Fujian, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Guizhou and Sichuan were affected by the heavy rains as direct economic losses caused by the heavy rains have topped 10 billion yuan (about $1.46 billion).”
View Map (video) Var, France (GenevaLunch) – Unusually heavy rains caused flash floods in the Var, in southeastern France, which have killed 11 people in the last 24 hours. At least two others are reported missing. The town of Lorgue had 284 mm of rain, according to the French meteorology office, during the night of Monday to Tuesday.
Links to other sites: Dauphine Libere, Le Monde, French Met Office
Machu Picchu in 2009 (photo ©2009 Claude Vedovini)
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland and the United Nations Development Programme will work with Peru to improve weather monitoring around the ancient Incan site of Machu Picchu, following a disastrous series of 40 mudslides due to heavy rains. The rains continue and the Cuzco department, where the site is located, was declared a disaster area Monday 1 February, by the regional president, Hugo Gonzales.
An estimated 25,000 people have been left homeless and another 37,000 have lost at least part of their property in the past two weeks. Some 4,000 tourists were airlifted out of the area last week, and Machu Picchu itself will be closed for at least two months while broken rail and road links are repaired.
The UK is being warned to prepare for more icy roads and freezing temperatures, with motorists being warned to stay home if possible. The bright note is that it should soon warm up but, reports the BBC, “More freezing conditions are forecast, before a weekend thaw threatens floods.”Meanwhile, the “Met” has come under fire for failing to predict early enough heavy snow that fell Wednesday 13 January, particularly in southwest Britain. Wales had drifts of up to 7 feet.
Links to other sites: BBC, Telegraph, UK Meteorology Office
Sudden rain on a scale rarely seen in Saudi Arabia earlier this week caused floods with a death toll that has now risen to 77, according to Saudi officials, who say the worst-hit area was Jeddah, about 60km from the holy city of Mecca, Wednesday 25 November. Thousands of pilgrims making their way to Mecca for the annual Hajj were warned by the government to take extra care, with more heavy rain forecast for the area. Aljazeera reports that thousands of people are stuck in Jeddah, unable to start the trip to Mecca.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The worst floods in decades in southern India have killed at least 250 people and left some 2.5 million people homeless. Aid workers from around the globe have “fanned out” across the region, reports the Press Association, to meet the urgent needs of people who only weeks earlier were suffering from severe drought. The torrential rains appear to have been caused by a low pressure zone over the Bay of Bengal and more rain is expected in the next 24 hours, say weather forecasters.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland is giving CHF450,000 to the Philippines Red Cross as emergency money to help victims of the floods provoked by tropical storm Ketsana, Bern announced late Thursday 1 October. It is also sending two experts from the Humanitarian Aid corps to help assess needs.
Update 11:15 Thirty-two people are known to have died in flash floods in Istanbul and northwestern Turkey Wednesday morning 9 September, and the death toll may climb as waters recede. Heavy rains that began Monday night caused flooding, and 24 of those who died were in the city of Istanbul. Seven of them were textile workers trapped in a shuttlebus that was taking them to a factory and 10 were truck drivers who were asleep in a parking lot. CNN, Huerriyet Daily News
Lake Geneva
Complete coverage of the WCC-3 by GenevaLunch
Conference is 31 August – 4 September 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Geneva is home this week to a key global conference on how the world can adapt to climate change – disasters such as floods and hurricanes, but also the more subtle changes that affect agriculture, tourism and daily life.
The conference agenda is wide-ranging and includes improvements to early warning systems for disasters and how to provide more precise and more localized weather forecasting, needed by developing countries as well as industries in the developed world.
The meeting is hosted by Switzerland and organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and a group of partners.
