Disaster

World Tsunami Awareness Day is celebrated every year on November 5 to boost people's understanding of the harmful effects of tsunamis and the safety measures during tsunamis

Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister P K Mishra has affirmed India's commitment to the Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction and called for increased international collaboration on knowledge sharing, technology transfer and sustainable development to enhance disaster resilience globally. Mishra said this while participating in the G-20 Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group (DRRWG) ministerial meeting in Belem, Brazil, according to an official release. He led a high-level Indian delegation which took part in the meeting held from October 30 to November 1. With the active participation of the Indian delegation, a consensus was arrived at on finalising the first ministerial declaration on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), the release issued by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs said. During various sessions, Mishra shared the progress made by the government of India in reducing disaster risks and in upscaling disaster financing. He emphasised India's proactive approach to ..

Climate change has led to an increase in the frequency of disasters, and it is crucial to adapt to living with these challenges, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said on Monday. Presiding over the International Disaster Reduction Day event, 'Samarth-2024' here, he announced that a major State Disaster Relief Force (SDRF) training institute will be established in Palampur. He emphasised that awareness is key to effectively responding to disasters and minimising the loss of life and property. The state government is spending a significant amount of money on disaster preparedness and awareness, he said in a statement issued here, adding a Rs 800-crore project is being executed in collaboration with the French agency Agence Franaise de Dveloppement (AFD), and Rs 500 crore is being spent from the mitigation fund. The CM said the region which is now Himachal Pradesh experienced its first major disaster in 1905, when an earthquake in Kangra claimed more than 20,000 lives. he said th

The Detailed Project Report (DPR) for reconstruction work to be carried out in land subsidence-hit Jyotirmath (Joshimath) is almost complete and will be sent to the Centre for approval this month after being examined by IIT-Roorkee. The information was given by Garhwal Commissioner Vinay Shankar Pandey and Disaster Management Secretary Vinod Kumar Suman at a meeting with the affected people in Jyotirmath on Tuesday. The DPR for sewerage, drainage, drain improvement and protection works in Jyotirmath is almost complete. After being examined by IIT-Roorkee, the DPR will be sent to the government of India, they said. The officials said Jyotirmath will be 100 per cent safe after the completion of the sewerage, drainage and drain construction work in the town and the toe-protection work on the banks of the Alaknanda and Dhauliganga rivers in Vishnu Prayag, they said. Conceding a demand of the residents, the Garhwal commissioner said a disaster rehabilitation office would be set up in ..

The Centre has sanctioned Rs 12,554 crore to various states this year so far for providing relief and rehabilitation to people affected by different natural disasters, officials said on Wednesday. Rs 890.69 crore has also been sanctioned to five states by the Union Home Ministry to help them in expansion and strengthening of their fire services under the Scheme for Expansion and Modernisation of Fire Services. Approximately Rs 12,554 crore has been sanctioned so far from the National Disaster Mitigation Fund, National Disaster Response Fund, State Disaster Mitigation Fund and State Disaster Response Fund to various states for urban flood management, fire services, glacial lake outburst flood risk mitigation and other disaster mitigation, a senior official of the Union Home Ministry said listing the highlights of the first 100 days of the Modi 3.0 government. Besides, under the Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Mitigation Programme for four states, Rs 150 crore has been given to Himachal .

The death toll in the building collapse here has climbed to eight with rescuers pulling out three more bodies from the debris, officials said on Sunday. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will visit Lok Bandhu Hospital here to meet those injured in the incident, after returning from Ambedkar Nagar, Director, Information, Shishir said. Joint Commissioner of Police Amit Verma said there is minimum possibility of someone still being trapped inside. A three-storey building housing godowns and a motor workshop collapsed in the Transport Nagar area here on Saturday, leaving 28 people injured. Five bodies were recovered from the spot. As the rescue operation continued overnight, teams of National Disaster Response team (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) recovered the bodies of three people, who were identified as Raj Kishore (27), Rudra Yadav (24) and Jagrup Singh (35), Relief Commissioner G S Naveen said. The eighth body was recovered around 3 am on Sunday, officials said. Joi

Japan was preparing for powerful typhoon as it slowly approached the country's southwest at a bicycle speed, threatening to bring heavy rains and strong winds and causing airlines to cancel flights and train operators to delay or suspend services through the weekend. Typhoon Shanshan was at about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of the southern island of Yakushima on Wednesday morning as it headed north toward Kyushu, packing winds of up to 180 kilometers (112 miles) per hour, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The agency said the typhoon is expected to reach southern Kyushu and possibly make landfall Thursday, and issued a high-level warning against violent winds, high waves and heavy rain for the Kagoshima prefecture. Disaster Management Minister Yoshifumi Matsumura, at a taskforce meeting Wednesday, urged residents in Shanshan's predicted path to take precautionary measures early, such as by checking their nearest shelters, to save their own lives. Matsumura urged ...

The disasters have also resulted in extensive property damage

Scientists believe that the 'doomsday vault' is a perfect way to store biodiversity samples on the moon, ensuring protection from natural disasters, wars, and socioeconomic threats, etc.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Tuesday that 93 bodies have been recovered and 128 people have been injured after massive landslides

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Mudslides triggered by heavy rain in a remote part of Ethiopia have killed at least 229 people, including many who tried to rescue survivors, local authorities said Tuesday, in what the prime minister called a "terrible loss." Young children and pregnant women were among the victims in Kencho Shacha Gozdi district of southern Ethiopia, said Dagmawi Ayele, a local administrator, adding that at least five people have been pulled out alive. The death toll rose sharply from the initial one of 55 late Monday. Search operations continued in the area, said Kassahun Abayneh, head of the communications office in Gofa Zone, the administrative area where the mudslides occurred. Ethiopia's ruling party in a statement said it felt sorrow over the disaster. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a statement on Facebook that he was deeply saddened by this terrible loss." The federal disaster prevention task force has been deployed to assist in search and rescue efforts, Abiy's statement said. It was

The head of upcoming climate negotiations told world leaders Wednesday that a new financial aid package for poor and disaster-struck nations is the urgent, make-or-break goal of United Nations talks this fall. Time lost is lives, livelihoods and the planet lost, said Mukhtar Babayev, the Azerbaijan ecology minister and president-designate of November climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan. At the same time, Simon Stiell, the United Nations' top climate official, made an emotional plea for a stepped-up fight against the growing cost of unchecked climate carnage from his hurricane-demolished hometown of Carriacou, Grenada, in some of the first video from the devastated island. Beryl is yet more painful proof, Stiell, executive secretary of the UN's climate agency, said from the remnants of a neighbour's house that had lost its roof and walls. Every year fossil fuel-driven climate costs are an economic wrecking ball hitting billions of households and small businesses. If governments ...

A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Bihar government to undertake a structural audit and set up an expert committee to identify bridges that can be either strengthened or demolished based on the findings. Ten incidents of bridge collapse have been reported in Bihar's Siwan, Saran, Madhubani, Araria, East Champaran and Kishanganj districts in over a fortnight. Many have claimed that heavy rainfall might have contributed to the incidents. The PIL, filed by advocate and petitioner Brajesh Singh, raised concerns about the safety and longevity of the bridges in the state that witnesses floods and heavy rains during monsoon. Besides setting up a high-level expert panel, it also sought real-time monitoring of the bridges as per the parameters of the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. In the PIL, the petitioner said it was a matter of grave concern that Bihar is the most flood-prone state in India. The total flood-affected area in the state is ..

The Department of Telecommunications will likely conduct trials in the coming months to assess the effectiveness of this initiative

The landslide crashed through Yambali village in the country's north at around 3 a.m. on Friday while most of the community slept

The Papua New Guinea government said a landslide on Friday buried more than 2,000 people and has formally asked for international help. The government figure is around three times more than a United Nations' estimate of 670. In a letter seen by The Associated Press to the United Nations resident coordinator dated Sunday, the acting director of the South Pacific island nation's National Disaster Center said the landslide buried more than 2000 people alive and caused major destruction. Estimates of the casualties have varied widely since the disaster occurred, and it was not immediately clear how officials arrived the number of people affected. Australia prepared on Monday to send aircraft and other equipment to help at the site of a deadly landslide in Papua New Guinea as overnight rains in the South Pacific nation's mountainous interior raised fears that the tons of rubble that buried hundreds of villagers could become dangerously unstable. Australian Defence Minister Richard Marl

Several districts of Assam are on high alert in the wake of forecast for heavy to extremely heavy rainfall from Monday under the impact of Cyclone Remal, which made landfall in neighbouring West Bengal and Bangladesh. The administration has urged people to maintain safety measures, and set up helpline numbers in case of emergency. The Northeast Frontier Railway, in a release, said 42 trains have been cancelled for two days from Monday. Several parts of Assam, including Guwahati, received rainfall since late Sunday evening, bringing down soaring mercury levels in the state. No reports of damage due to the impact of the cyclone have been received yet, official sources said. "Cyclone Remal can bring inclement weather in parts of Assam. We are taking several precautionary measures," Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on X. He added that teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) are on standby and control rooms are operation

Over 15,000 houses were damaged in the hailstorm that hit Manipur on Sunday, Chief Minister N Biren Singh said. Addressing a press conference on Monday, Singh said several vehicles were also damaged in the disaster. "The state sustained massive damage in yesterday's hailstorm. Further assessment is going on. So far, 15,425 houses have been severely damaged. The Imphal West district is worst affected with 6,053 houses being damaged," Singh said. "A total of 5,600 houses were damaged in Imphal East, while in Churachandpur district, 540 houses were damaged," he said. The hailstorm damaged 1,179 houses in Bishnupur, 800 houses in Thoubal, 292 in Kangpokpi, and 200 in Ukhrul, he added. Singh said 42 relief camps were opened following the disaster, and relief materials were being provided through the deputy commissioners. "A total of Rs 6.19 crore has been sanctioned to meet the relief expenses, of which Rs 50 lakh each for the valley districts and Rs 40 lakhs each for the hill distric

Tornadoes that tore through Oklahoma have flattened buildings across one rural town, killing at least four people, causing widespread power outages and leaving a trail of destruction, Gov. Kevin Stitt said Sunday. Nearly 30,000 people remained without power after tornadoes began late Saturday night. The damage was extensive in Sulphur, a town of about 5,000 people, where some downtown buildings were reduced to rubble and roofs were sheared off houses across a 15-block radius. You just can't believe the destruction, Stitt said. It seems like every business downtown has been destroyed. Stitt said about 30 people were injured in Sulphur alone. Dozens of reported tornadoes have wreaked havoc in the nation's midsection since Friday, with flood watches and warnings in effect Sunday for Oklahoma and other states including Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas. In Oklahoma, a tornado ripped through Holdenville, a town of about 5,000 people, late Saturday, killing two people, and injuring f