Natural disasters, calamities: India
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This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
Chronology of disasters
1995-2015
The Times of India, Nov 25 2015
`India 3rd worst affected by natural disasters in 20 yrs'
India ranks third, after the US and China, among the five countries hit the most by natural disasters over the last 20 years, a report released by the United Nations office on disaster risk reduction has said. The Philippines and Indonesia round up the top five. `The Human Cost of Weather Related Disasters', released on Monday by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), showed that over the last two decades, 90% of major disasters were caused by 6,457 recorded floods, storms, heat waves, droughts and other weatherrelated events.
“Since the first climate change conference (COP1) in 1995, 606,000 lives have been lost and 4.1 billion people have been injured, left homeless or in need of emergency assistance as a result of weather-related disasters,“ the report said.
The UNISDR observed data gaps on the extent of economic losses from weatherrelated disasters as they are much higher than the recorded figure of $1.9 trillion.“Only 35% of records include information about economic losses,“ it said, and estimated that the true figure on disaster losses, including earthquakes and tsunamis, was between $250 billion and $300 billion annually .
Releasing the report, UNISDR head Margareta Wahlstrom said, “In the long term, an agreement in Paris at COP21 on reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be a significant contribution to reducing damage and loss from disasters which are partly driven by a warming globe and rising sea levels.“ For now, she said, there was a need to reduce existing levels of risk and avoid creating new risks.
2014
December 16, 2014
India witnesses huge loss of human life and property because of natural calamities. Apart from the floods that annually hit states of Bihar, West Bengal and Assam and the cyclones that hit the coastal states, 2014 also saw flooding in J&K and a massive landslide in Maharashtra.As on November 19, 2014, natural calamities resulted in the loss of over 1,500 lives across the country. More than 7 lakh houses were damaged and about one lakh heads of cattle were lost.
Lightning strikes: India
2014: Deaths caused by lightning
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The Times of India, Sep 08 2015 In 2014, more than 20,000 people were killed by accidents caused by forces of nature.Among the known reasons of these deaths, the largest chunk were due to lightning, which alone killed more than 2,500 people. It was followed by heat sun stroke, exposure to cold and flood, each causing more than 500 deaths. A state-wise comparison of lightning deaths shows that the highest number of causalities was reported in Madhya Pradesh, where over 400 people lost their lives.Andhra Pradesh, where 19 people got killed by multiple lightning strikes on Sunday, witnessed 69 deaths in 2014.
