Articles in this section

• Disasters

  “The risk has already increased” – Droughts and flooding rains already more likely as climate change plays havoc with Pacific weather

  8 February, by CHUNG Christine, DELAGE François, MURPHY Brad, YE Hua

  Climate change is already delivering more extremes of wet and dry to the Pacific region.
  Global warming has already increased the risk of major disruptions to Pacific rainfall, according to our research published today in Nature Communications. The risk will continue to rise over coming (...)

• Disasters

  South Asia, Himalaya and lessons from Nepal earthquake: Prepare and survive

  8 May 2015, by BIDWAI Praful

  It is humanly impossible not to be moved by the magnitude and quality of the humanitarian disaster that has visited Nepal and the adjoining regions of India and Bangladesh as a result of the April 25 earthquake of magnitude 7.9. The death toll has already crossed 5,000. The entire world, and (...)

• Disasters

  El Nino is Coming

  8 April 2009, by BERTHELSEN John

  Although nobody knows how strong or long it will last, Asia’s weather will change
  Thousands of meters into the atmosphere, the great trade winds over Southeast Asia are starting to slow, as they have done 14 times in the last century. The oceans surrounding Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines (...)

• Disasters

  ’Brown Clouds’ Are World’s Newest Environmental Threat

  14 November 2008, by HEILPRIN John, TRAN Tini

  A dirty brown haze sometimes more than a mile thick is darkening skies not only over vast areas of Asia, but also in the Middle East, southern Africa and the Amazon Basin, changing weather patterns and threatening health and food supplies, the UN reported.
  The huge smog-like plumes, caused (...)

• Disasters

  Cynical exploitation of tsunami victims

  May 2005, by SAMY L. A.

  Tsunami is also capable of generating black humour. The joke that was making its rounds in Sri Lanka after the natural calamity struck its coastal areas: Some concerned scientists from abroad, after learning of the massive undersea earthquake near Sumatra, wanted to warn the Sri Lankan (...)

• Disasters

  The Tsunami was natural, but its effects were not

  January 2005, by UNGPAKORN Giles Ji

  Natural disasters, such as violent storms, earthquakes and tsunamis may have natural causes, but the effects are never just the results of natural accidents. The effects of nature on human society are determined by class society and the priorities given to ordinary peoples lives, both in the (...)

• Disasters

  No Smoke Without Fire: South-east Asia’s environmental and health disaster

  13 November 1997, by SKANTHAKUMAR Balasingham

  Forest fires in Indonesia have blanketed Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Southern Thailand and the Southern Philippines in thick smoke blocking out the sun and choking tens of millions of people.
  Within South-east Asia it’s called the ‘haze’ – an innocuous word which deliberately plays down the (...)