Floods

Google on Tuesday announced that it has launched an SOS Alert feature for Assam floods to let users close to the affected areas look at emergency phone numbers, websites, and maps directly using Google Search. Alongside Google Search, Google Maps is highlighting the affected areas to assist rescue teams and people planning to give aid to the locals impacted due to the flood situation. Google.org, the charitable arm of Google, separately announced a grant to support community-based organisations providing support to…

by Sally Thompson, Anneliese Sytsma, Dana Ariel Lapides and Mary H. Nichols, The Conversation Credit: Shutterstock Protecting people from floods requires many technical professionals to make good predictions and decisions.…

Insurers are using rapidly evolving data tools to help predict, and potentially prevent, storm-related losses, an effort they hope will yield benefits during this year’s hurricane season. The past six years had higher-than-average Atlantic hurricane activity, an unlucky streak for communities in the way. This year’s season—typically defined as June through November—is predicted to be another busy one. Though scientists are split on how climate change might be influencing the number of hurricanes, warming is expected to…

The latest pre-wipe event in Escape From Tarkov has seen the Customs map visited by every boss in the game, and teases the same wipe date that developer Battlestate Games hinted at yesterday (June 21). Today (June 22), Battlestate Games shared a photo on Twitter which shows the frontpage of a Russian newspaper. The newspaper includes a photo of every Escape From Tarkov boss stood together, and as reliable translator BakeeZy has confirmed, the story says they are all meeting on Customs. #EscapefromTarkov…

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Every student in every school in Australia has experienced unprecedented disruptions to their schooling over the past three years. On top of the disruptions and stress of COVID-19 lockdowns, isolation from their schools, their friends and (for many) their extended families, tens of thousands of Australian families have also seen their communities ravaged by fires and floods.…

File photo of Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte on Feb. 10, 2021 (left) A house sits in Rock Creek after floodwaters washed away a road and a bridge in Red Lodge, Montana, June 15, 2022.Photo: Thom Bridge/Independent Record - David Goldman (AP)Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, a man best known nationally for once body-slamming a reporter, has been missing for the past few days as the state experiences devastating and historic flooding. The governor’s office refuses to say where Gianforte currently is, only stating that he left the…

Abbott Laboratoriessaid it has paused baby-formula production at its plant in Sturgis, Mich., after recent thunderstorms flooded part of the facility, causing another setback for the company’s efforts to help alleviate a nationwide formula shortage.Abbott said Wednesday that it had stopped production of its EleCare specialty formula, which it had recently restarted, so it could assess damage from the storms and clean the plant. The halt will delay distribution of new product by a few weeks, the company said. Abbott…

Dams are often built to control floods, but on certain kinds of rivers they may make big deluges worse, a new study finds. The finding suggests river managers might need to rethink their flood control strategies on silty and sandy lowland rivers. “It’s a counterintuitive finding,” says Gordon Grant, a hydrologist and geomorphologist with the U.S. Forest Service who was not involved with the work. “What this provocative paper is showing us is that we don’t fully understand” how…

Throughout history, important cities around the world have flourished along river banks. But rivers can also be destructive forces. They routinely flood, and on rare occasions, they can abruptly shift pathways.  These "channel-jumping" events, which are called avulsions, have caused some of the deadliest floods in human history.Avulsions on China's Yellow River killed over 6 million people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Similar events have been linked to the decline of Mesopotamian civilization along the…

Vehicles stuck in the floodwater in Sylhet, Bangladesh, May 17, 2022. Many roads have been submerged due to continuous high rains for several days.Md Rafayat Haque Khan | Eyepix Group | Future Publishing | Getty ImagesSevere floods in parts of Bangladesh and India have killed at least 24 people and left thousands of people displaced in recent weeks, as extreme weather events fueled by climate change become more frequent and intense across South Asia.Flood waters have submerged villages in the north-eastern Indian state of…