APRIL 2024

ASIA

Passengers crowded around airline desks at Dubai international airport on Wednesday after major delays and cancellations caused by heavy rains. The United Arab Emirates was hit by what the government described as the highest rainfall in the past 75 years. The rains began on Monday night, and by Tuesday evening the desert city of Dubai had received the average amount of rain it normally gets in a year. Although the heavy rains had eased by late Tuesday, disruption was continuing on Wednesday, with Emirates airline suspending check-in for passengers departing from Dubai until midnight.

At least five people were killed and 33 injured after a tornado struck the Chinese city of Guangzhou over the weekend, state media reported, in the latest bout of extreme weather to hit the country’s industrial heartland.  China’s official Xinhua news agency said that the tornado hit the Guangdong province capital, in the country’s south on Saturday. About 140 factories were damaged, but there were no reports of collapsed houses.  Guangdong, China’s most populous province, is home to 127 million people and thousands of factories that power the nation’s export sector. Aerial photos posted by Chinese state media on Sunday showed the tornado had caused wide devastation in parts of the city. The images showed block upon block of damage in the hardest-hit areas with a few clusters of buildings standing amid the destruction.  Heavy rainstorms that swept across southern China over the weekend killed at least four people as floods swamped cities in the densely populated Pearl River Delta, state media reported.  A search was under way for 10 others missing after record-breaking rains sparked concerns about the region’s defences against bigger deluges induced by extreme weather events.  By Monday, about 110,000 people had been evacuated across the province, while 25,800 people were in emergency shelters, according to Xinhua.
In Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, the government said the city had logged a cumulative rainfall of 60.9cm in April, the highest monthly rainfall since record-keeping began in 1959. The country’s highest-level red rainstorm warning was issued for parts of Guangdong, including the megacity of Shenzhen, the city’s meteorological observatory said. The areas listed were experiencing “heavy to very heavy downpours”, the weather agency said, adding the risk of flash floods was “very high”.  The official Xinhua news agency said three people died in Zhaoqing city while one rescuer died in Shaoguan city. It didn’t provide details about when or how they died. The two cities in Guangdong province are among the worst hit areas of sustained torrential rains that began late last week.

Heavy rain has fallen in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past week, with flooding causing widespread damage to infrastructure and farmland on both sides of the border. At least 135 people have been reported dead, including 21 farmers in the Punjab region who were struck by lightning while harvesting wheat. Thousands of houses have been damaged or destroyed, with several deaths attributed to roofs collapsing under the weight of collected water. Alongside damage to almost 100,000 acres of agricultural land, thousands of livestock animals have been lost.  The extreme rainfall came in stark contrast to the uncommonly dry winter, during which Afghanistan received only about half its usual rainfall, while Pakistan fared little better. The resulting drier soils struggled to absorb the rain, which exacerbated the flooding.

Dubai is wrestling with the aftermath of extraordinary torrential rains that flooded the desert city, with people describing harrowing stories of spending the night in their cars, and air passengers enduring chaotic scenes at airports.  Up to 259.5mm (10.2in) of rain fell on the usually arid country of the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, the most since records began 75 years ago. The state-run WAM news agency called the rains on Tuesday “a historic weather event” that surpassed “anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949”.  As the sun returned on Wednesday, along with it came stories of people stuck in cars and offices through an arduous night.  “It was one of the most horrific situations I had ever experienced,” said one Dubai resident in his 30s, who did not want to give his name, after his 15-minute commute turned into a 12-hour ordeal on flooded roads.

EUROPE

Storms and heavy rain pushed up weather-related home insurance claims in the UK by more than a third last year to a record £573m, according to industry data.  The repair bill for storm damage and other extreme weather during 2023 was £150m more than in 2022, the Association of British Insurers said, contributing to an overall 10% rise in residential property claims settled last year.  The increase was fuelled by a succession of storms including Babet, Ciaran and Debi, according to the ABI. The weather total includes flood damage as well as burst pipes in freezing temperatures, which accounted for £153m, mainly at the beginning of 2023 at the tail end of a cold winter. The average weather-related payout was approaching £5,000 in 2023 compared with a little over £3,000 in 2022.

Five people have been killed by falling trees as strong winds battered  Southern Poland on Monday, reaching a speed of 96mph (155km/h) in the highest parts of the Tatra mountains.  In the town of Rabka-Zdrój, two women and a six-year-old died after a tree crushed them, firefighters said. Another woman died when a tree fell on her car in the town of Zakopane at the foot of the Tatra mountains, a spokesperson for Zakopane’s firefighters, Andrzej Król-Łęgowski, said. A falling tree in the same town killed a child, according to a spokesperson for medical responders. Local authorities have issued a warning of dangerous winds reaching at least 62mph and have closed mountain tracks in Tatra national park. Firefighters intervened 140 times on Monday morning to remove trees blocking roads and help homeowners with destroyed roofs, local media said. The winds followed three days of unusually warm weather. On 30 March, temperatures reached a new record for that month, rising to 26.4C in the southern town of Tarnów, according to the state PAP newswire.

UNITED STATES

Millions of people across the US were bracing for extreme weather on Wednesday as a powerful system of thunderstorms swept across several states, bringing intense winds, rain, and other dangerous weather conditions.  As of Wednesday morning, more than 275,000 residents in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Kentucky were without power due to severe storms, according to poweroutage.us. The majority of power outages are in West Virginia, where Jim Justice declared a state of emergency in several counties due to dangerous weather. Severe storms in the state caused “flooding, downed trees, power outages, and road blockages”, the governor said in his emergency declaration. At least 13 homes in Fayette county, West Virginia, located in the state’s central area, were damaged. Several non life-threatening injuries were also reported, per CNN.

At least four people, including a baby, were killed after a series of tornadoes truck Oklahoma on Saturday, amid a weekend of extreme weather that left dozens injured and a trail of destruction across the Midwest.  Local authorities confirmed that a four-month-old infant was among the two people dead in Holdenville – one of the hardest-hit towns in Oklahoma, located 80 miles south-east of Oklahoma City – where about 20 tornadoes hit late on Saturday, leveling buildings and ripping off roofs. The victims have not been named, but at least four others were injured as the tornado left a path of devastation through the town of about 6,000 people. A third death occurred near Marietta on Interstate 35 (I-35) which was closed on Sunday at the border with Texas “due to overturned vehicles and power lines across the highway”, according to the Oklahoma office of emergency management. The body of a woman, the fourth known victim, was recovered from the debris near a bar in downtown Sulphur, said Governor Kevin Stitt, who has issued a state of emergency for 12 Oklahoma counties.  Search and rescue efforts continued through Sunday as emergency services responded to extensive damage caused by the hail, high winds and flooding.

AFRICA

At least 45 people died when a makeshift dam burst its banks near a southern town in Kenya’s Rift valley in the early hours of Monday, police said, as torrential rains and floods hit the country.  The disaster raises the total death toll over the March-May wet season in Kenya to more than 100, as heavier-than-usual rainfall pounds east Africa, compounded by El Niño weather pattern.  Isaac Mwaura, a government spokesperson, estimated that the death toll was 103 people, “with the Rift Valley being the worst hit”. In a post on X, Mwaura said 185,297 had been displaced adding that search and rescue operations were ongoing as well as efforts to support people.  Residents said the dam burst in the dead of night, sending water gushing down a hill and engulfing everything in its path. The deluge cut off a road, uprooted trees and washed away homes and overturned vehicles. “We heard what sounded like an earthquake and roars like a moving train,” said Margaret Wangechi, 52, a teacher.  A senior officer at Nakuru County police headquarters told AFP by phone that 45 bodies had been recovered so far, while the Nakuru governor, Susan Kihika, said 110 people were being treated in hospital. Rescuers were digging through the debris, using hoes and in some cases their bare hands in a desperate search for survivors. “We collected some of the bodies held by trees and we don’t know how many are under the mud,” said Stephen Njihia Njoroge, who was involved in the emergency efforts. The disaster occurred at Old Kijabe dam, a hillside barrier formed naturally over decades after railway construction work by Kenya’s former British colonial rulers. The Red Cross has set up a desk at a local school to help families find lost relatives.