Wednesday, January 05, 2011

14th entry - 2010 - Year of Natural Disasters

According to a website, 2010 was a record-breaking year for natural disasters, and many of which are climate-change related weather events. Five of the natural disasters recorded in 2010 were considered to be “great natural catastrophes” based on the United Nations definition: the earthquakes in Haiti (January 12th), the earthquakes in Chile (February 27th) and the earthquakes in central China (April 13th), the heat-wave in Russia (July to September) and the floods in Pakistan (also July to September).

An article on Asia One news website lists these disasters and reports on their impact on human lives around the world:

While the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti was the biggest killer, taking about 220,000 lives and burying most of the country's capital, Port-au-Prince, strong quakes also struck Chile, China and Indonesia, causing panic and loss of life. More lives were lost due to poor housing and infrastructure, densely crowded and vulnerable urban areas, government inefficiency and lack of emergency services and sanitation.

Just weeks after the Haiti earthquake, a much stronger one - 8.8 magnitude in scale - hit a large part of Chile. Fortunately, better building standards and lower concentrations of people kept the death to about 700. In New Zealand in September, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck the South Island, including the second largest city of Christchurch, but there were no casualties. This was largely due to the country's advanced emergency services and strict city planning and building codes.

Intense flooding killed about 6,300 people in 59 countries up until September, according to the World Heath Organisation. The most severe, in Pakistan, lasted for months and covered about a fifth of the nation's land area under water. About 2,000 people were killed and 12 million others lost houses, property and livestock.

Viet Nam was also inundated. In October and November, the central region, from Nghe An to Khanh Hoa province, was ravaged by five separate floods. They were the worst for many years.

Almost 200 people were killed, 197 injured and another 35 were reported missing. Economic losses were estimated at VND13.5 trillion ($694 million) as crops were devastated and irrigation systems destroyed.

In April, massive eruptions from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano took no lives, but filled northern European skies with grey ash for weeks.

Air traffic was disrupted for weeks and the flights of about 7 million people affected. In November, the violent eruption of Indonesia's Mount Merapi killed 353 people and forced more than 350,000 people to flee their homes.

Then there was the record heat wave in Russia in July which led to devastating wildfires in August. An extremely cold start to winter brought blizzards across the US and Europe.


Singapore was spared natural disasters in 2010, but our nation also suffered the loss of three notable persons who have contributed significantly to Singapore: beginning with Dr Goh Keng Swee on 14 May 2010, followed by former Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Balaji Sadasivan on 27 Sep 2010, and finally, Mrs Lee Kuan Yew (Mdm Kwa Geok Choo) on 2 Oct 2010.




Hopefully 2011 will be a better year for everyone...

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