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A family picnic along the picturesque Swat River turned into a heartbreaking tragedy as sudden flash floods swept away 17 members of an extended family from Sialkot, killing 11, with two still missing, officials confirmed. The incident unfolded when children entered the river for photographs, only to be caught in a sudden monsoon surge. Their relatives rushed in to help, but the powerful current overwhelmed them, said district administrator Shehzad Mahboob. Nine of the victims belonged to a single family unit of 16. Rescue efforts are ongoing, with four individuals successfully pulled to safety, while emergency teams continue the search for the missing. The disaster is part of a larger monsoon crisis wreaking havoc across Pakistan, where 32 lives have been lost this week alone due to...

As climate disasters grow more intense and frequent, nations across the globe have ramped up investments in weather forecasting and modeling. But a stark question remains: what use is a forecast if it’s not trusted, understood, or acted upon? Recent catastrophes have laid bare the limits of conventional early warning systems. In 2023, as wildfires devastated Maui in Hawai'i, sirens remained silent. Residents, unfamiliar with the alerts or how to respond, were left vulnerable. Two years earlier, during the 2021 eruption of Mount Semeru in Indonesia, no warnings were issued at all. The failure stemmed from applying a U.S.-based warning framework that hadn’t been adapted to local contexts despite heavy rains triggering the explosion. These are not isolated failures. Even the most advanc...

When Hurricane Helene battered the Southeastern U.S. in September 2024, it lasted only a few days but its impacts are far from over. The storm’s immediate destruction was followed by a chain of slower, subtler changes to the landscape, many of which are only beginning to reveal their consequences. In the wake of Helene, landslides buried roads river channels shifted, and forests were torn apart leaving behind unstable terrain and sediment-laden rivers that now pose long-term risks of flooding and erosion. These are not just aftershocks they are part of a complex phenomenon scientists call cascading hazards. A Chain Reaction of Destruction Cascading hazards occur when one natural event sets off a domino effect of future dangers. A landslide triggered by a storm may block a river, onl...

In a first-of-its-kind discovery scientists have captured a slow slip earthquake in the act of releasing tectonic pressure along one of the world’s most dangerous fault zones a section of Japan’s Nankai Fault that lies just beneath the ocean floor. The groundbreaking findings, published in Science, come from a research team at The University of Texas at Austin. Using ultra-sensitive borehole sensors embedded in the seafloor, researchers were able to observe the slow, ripple-like movement of the fault as it gradually unzipped over several weeks in 2015, and again in 2020. The event, invisible to traditional land-based GPS, marks the first time such a slow slip has been recorded in real-time as it happened within a tsunami-generating zone. “It’s like a ripple moving across the plate in...

New data shows targeted fire management reduces wildfire severity by 16% and smoke pollution by 14% with major implications for public health and climate resilience. As wildfire seasons grow longer and deadlier across the American West new Stanford-led study offers compelling evidence that prescribed burns controlled, low-intensity fires can significantly reduce wildfire destruction and the harmful smoke that blankets large swaths of the country. Published on June 26 in AGU Advances, the study found that prescribed fires reduced wildfire intensity by an average of 16% and slashed smoke pollution by 14%, offering a rare empirical look at the effectiveness of this widely promoted but still underutilized fire management strategy. “Prescribed fire is often promoted in theory, but we s...

Countries from across the world are converging in Seville, Spain, for the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), a landmark event poised to redefine how global financial systems respond to the twin crises of debt and climate change. Hosted from June 30 to July 3, 2025, the conference comes at a critical juncture for developing nations grappling with spiraling debt, tax injustice, and the widening gap in climate finance. Held once every decade and organized by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), FfD4 will formally adopt the Compromiso de Sevilla a negotiated outcome document finalized earlier this month in New York. Alongside high-level commitments from member states, the confere...

Efforts to combat the global climate crisis are being severely undermined by a wave of misinformation that distorts scientific facts and misleads the public, according to a comprehensive new report by the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) a global network of more than 250 experts. The report, “Information Integrity about Climate Science: A Systematic Review,” synthesizes findings from over 300 academic studies published between 2015 and 2025. It paints a stark picture of how false or misleading narratives often backed by powerful fossil fuel corporations and industry lobbies are obstructing climate action at a time when the world can least afford delays. Fossil Fuel Firms at the Epicenter The report accuses major oil and coal companies including ExxonMobil, S...

Himachal Pradesh is grappling with a severe natural calamity after a powerful cloudburst triggered sudden flash floods, killing at least five people and leaving several others missing across Kullu and Kangra districts. The intense rainfall event, which unfolded late Wednesday night, caused significant destruction to homes, roads, and essential infrastructure, especially in remote mountainous regions. Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu confirmed that five people have died, with three still missing in Kullu alone. In one hopeful development, a missing person was found alive after taking shelter in a nearby forest. Search and rescue teams, including disaster response personnel, are racing against time as heavy rains continue to lash parts of the state. “The region is steep and diffic...

A breakthrough set of experiments led by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) has provided compelling proof that improving weather observations in low-income countries leads to significantly better global weather forecasts. Commissioned by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the study marks a major milestone in forecasting science and could reshape climate resilience planning worldwide. The experiments were conducted under the Systematic Observations Financing Facility (SOFF), a UN-backed initiative aimed at closing major data gaps in weather monitoring, particularly in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) regions that face some of the highest climate risks but have the weakest observational infrastructure. Desp...

A chilling new study warns that the dangerous combination of hurricanes and heatwaves once a rare occurrence is becoming more common due to climate change, and could threaten millions in the coming decades. The research, published May 15 in Nature Communications, focuses on Hurricane Ida, which devastated Louisiana in 2021. The storm knocked out power to 35 million customers, and the heatwave that followed claimed 11 lives. Scientists now say this type of compound disaster could shift from a once-in-a-lifetime event to a regular occurrence. Led by Professor Ning Lin of Princeton University, the study reveals how warming temperatures are pushing heatwaves later into the year when hurricane season is still active. This increases the odds that people will face both disasters back-to-bac...