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The Recent Major Climatic Disasters across the World.

Hong Kong (CNN):

Two big storms have formed in the waters of East Asia, both of which are expected to lash the region with strong winds and heavy rains in the coming days.

Tropical Storm Cempaka strengthened into a typhoon early Tuesday over the South China Sea. The storm had winds up to 120 kph (75 mph) and was located about 185 kilometers (115 miles) southwest of Hong Kong as of 5 a.m. (5 p.m. ET). Cempaka is not expected to intensify as it nears land. A Strong Wind Signal No. 3 was in effect for Hong Kong, indicating wind speeds of 41 to 62 kph (about 25-40 mph), according to the Hong Kong Observatory's typhoon warning signals.

The other storm, In-Fa, is tracking further north, mainly impacting Japan's southern islands and Taiwan. It is forecast to strengthen into a typhoon Tuesday night, but it is not likely to interact with Cempaka. In-Fa is expected to bring rain to Japan ahead of the Olympic Games, which open in Tokyo on Friday. The big waves associated with the storm may be a boon for surfers training for the inaugural Olympic surfing competition.

Cempaka is expected to make landfall Tuesday afternoon or evening near the city of Yangjiang in China's Guangdong province, bringing heavy, flooding rains to southeastern portions of the country through much of this week.

A widespread 100 to 200 millimeters (about 4 to 8 inches) of rainfall is forecast for the provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan. Isolated locations could approach 500 millimeters (about 20 inches) through Friday local time. There will also be strong, gusty winds, especially near the coast where the storm will make landfall, which could cause isolated power outages. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center said it expects Cempaka to meander over these provinces and possibly emerge back over the South China Sea by this weekend, keeping an elevated risk for rain and flooding, especially near the coast.

China:

China floods; thousands trapped without fresh water as rain moves north.

Thousands of people remain trapped in central China as floods continue to batter the region, killing at least 51, a number that is expected to rise again sharply as recovery crews access previously submerged roads and tunnels in the capital city.

Record-breaking rainstorms – which dumped a year’s worth of rain on and around the capital of Henan province, Zhengzhou, earlier this week – have since moved north, affecting outer cities and regional areas, trapping people without electricity or fresh water, including at hospitals.

On Friday afternoon state media reported the death toll had risen from 33 to 51, citing local authorities, and a financial toll of of more than 65 billion yuan (£7.3bn). More than a million people had been relocated, half of them having lost their homes.

‘I might not make it’: passengers tell of horror as Chinese subway floods

“We couldn’t evacuate in time because my elderly disabled grandma couldn’t leave the house,” one 16-year-old school student surnamed Zhang, who said their house in Gongyi was completely flooded, told AFP. “I was pretty scared I’d drown.”

Local reports suggested the city of Xinxiang, home to 5.8 million people, had been hardest hit, with more than 260mm falling in a two-hour window. State media reported the Wei river had burst its banks and flooded villages near Hebi. Local authorities pushed at least half a dozen trucks into the breach in an attempt to block it, without success.

Tens of thousands were being rescued or evacuated from villages and farmlands, some by makeshift bridges, other by inflatable boat or in the buckets of construction diggers.

“Presently, nearly 9,000 people have been safely transferred,” state broadcaster CCTV said, adding authorities were evacuating “the remaining 19,000 people.”

One Xinxiang resident described the ground floor of her house going underwater in a matter of hours, prompting her to send an SOS out on social media.

“Around 40 or 50-something calls flooded in, from the local and other provinces from Jiangsu and Jiangxi. They asked for our details and help to contact rescue teams. I saw some lights through my window around 1130pm, it was the rescue team. That was so unreal to hear their voice.”

Another widely shared story recounted the efforts of a young doctor, Yu Yifei, who was credited with saving more than a dozen lives while giving CPR to people caught in the flooded Zhengzhou subway.

As Henan’s disaster continues, eyes are already moving to China’s east coast and an approaching typhoon. Typhoon In-fa has brought heavy rain to northern Taiwan and Japan’s southern islands, and is predicted to make landfall near Shanghai over the weekend. In-fa was credited with partly driving Henan’s rainstorm even while hundreds of kilometres to the east of Taiwan.

During Saturday and Sunday’s high tides “coastal areas should guard against the combined impact of wind, rain and tides,” the National Meteorological Center said, warning the public to prepare for a major weather event.

Two dams collapse after heavy rains hit Inner Mongolia, China

Two dams in North China's Inner Mongolia collapsed on Sunday, July 18, 2021, after heavy rains falling since Saturday. Local citizens were evacuated before the collapse and while material damage is huge, there are no reports of casualties. The combined water storage capacity of both reservoirs was 46 million m3 (1.6 trillion ft3).

The first dam collapsed at the Yongan Reservoir​ in the city of Hulunbuir at 13:48 LT, sending a large amount of floodwater into Xinfa reservoir, located 13 km (8 miles) downstream. At about 15:30 LT, the second dam collapsed at Xinfa reservoir (capacity 38 million m3 (1.3 trillion ft3)).

"On the night of the 18th, the flood has merged into the mainstream of the Nuomin River. Flooding caused the G111 national highway in Mo Banner to collapse, causing road disruptions. Downstream villages and farmlands have been turned into a sea of water," according to China Observer.

According to the Ministry of Water Resources, 87 mm (3.4 inches) of rain fell in Hulunbuir on July 17 and 18 and as much as 223 mm (8.8 inches) at the Morin Dawa monitoring station.

Hulunbuir city officials said 16 660 people have been affected and 21 775 ha (53 807 acres) of farmland submerged. 22 bridges were destroyed, as well as 124 culverts and 15.6 km (9.7 miles) of highways.

According to 2021 statistics from the Ministry of Water Resources, most of the dams in China have exceeded or are approaching the end of their design life.

China Observer presents more information in the video:

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Germany floods: Government rejects criticism over flood warnings

Germany's government has hit back at criticism over its warning systems after the worst flooding in decades left at least 160 people dead.

The deluge caught many off guard, sweeping away houses and leaving residents trapped in rising waters. More than 170 people are still missing.

The opposition Green Party said the disaster showed Germany must prepare better for extreme weather events.

But Interior Minister Horst Seehofer defended the government's actions.

Local communities should decide how to respond, he said. Under Germany's political system, regional states are responsible for emergency efforts.

"It would be completely inconceivable for such a catastrophe to be managed centrally from any one place - you need local knowledge," he said.

He called the criticism "cheap election rhetoric". Germany votes in September to elect a successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel. She is retiring after 16 years in power.

Flood warning systems sent out alerts a few days before the heavy rain. However, they failed to reach many residents or officials in time.

Armin Schuster, head of the Federal Office for Civil Protection, said "the warning infrastructure wasn't our problem, but the effectiveness with which authorities and the population reacted to these warnings".

He said "we sent out 150 warnings via our apps, via the media". But in many cases, he said, it was impossible to predict even half an hour ahead which places would be hit hardest.

But some have questioned the usefulness of warning apps, as the floods severed many phone links.

Many factors contribute to flooding, but a warming atmosphere caused by climate change makes extreme rainfall more likely.

On the ground the risk of floods is easing as the weather improves.

In the severely hit Ahrweiler area, in Rhineland-Palatinate, the death toll rose to 117 on Monday. In North Rhine-Westphalia, at least 46 people died.

A massive clean-up is under way. German media report oil pollution of rivers, including parts of the Rhine, from heating oil in flooded cellars and abandoned cars.

Landslides in western India kill 32, while floods trap more:

Landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains hit parts of western India killing at least 32 people and leading to the overnight rescue of more than 1,000 other people trapped by floodwaters, officials said Friday.

The dead were killed in three landslides in Raigad district in western Maharashtra state, said District Collector Nidhi Chaudhary. Many of those rescued were stranded on rooftops and even on top of buses on highways, she said.

State government official Sagar Pathak said in addition to the 32 dead, more than 30 people were missing after the landslides.

Chaudhary said the rains had slowed and water levels were coming down Friday, making it easier for rescuers to reach the area.

Elsewhere in the region, a house collapsed Friday after heavy rains in the Shivaji Nagar area in eastern Mumbai, killing two people and injuring eight others, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

In Ratnagiri district, 200 people were rescued from hilly areas on Thursday after the heavy rains, according to PTI.

In the coastal town of Chiplun, home to 70,000 people, more than half the area was flooded, the news agency reported.

B.N, Patil, district administrator of Ratnagiri, said he has sought the help of the army, coast guard and the National Disaster Response Force for rescue operations.

An Indian navy statement said it has deployed helicopters for evacuating stranded people and sent rescue teams with boats to the region.

Authorities on Friday sounded an alert in the southern state of Telangana with heavy rains causing flooding in Hyderabad, the state capital, and other low-lying areas.

Meteorologists said the 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) of rain that has fallen so far this month in Hyderabad, known as one of India’s information technology hubs, is the most for July in 10 years. The flood gates of one of the main reservoirs, Osman Sagar, were opened for the first time in a decade to discharge excess water.

Last weekend, more than 30 people were killed in landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains in and around Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital.

Disasters caused by landslides and flooding are common in India during the June-September monsoon season, when heavy rains weaken the foundations of structures that are often poorly built.

The monsoon is crucial for rain-fed crops planted during the season but the rains often cause extensive damage and kill scores of people each year.

Experts said that heavy rainfall along India’s western coast is in line with how rainfall patterns have changed over the region in past years due to climate change.

“The frequency and intensity of heavy rains has increased,” said Roxy Mathew Koll, a scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in the western city of Pune.

He added that the warming Arabian Sea was driving more cyclones and more intense rainfall over short periods of time.

“Every year we need to be prepared on the west coast,” he said.

New Zealand west coast hit by heavy floods after month of rain falls in one weekend:

New Zealand’s west coast has been hit by severe flooding, with a local state of emergency declared and thousands evacuated from their homes.

The latest floods arrived in the aftermath of heavy rains and storms over the past two months that prompted states of emergency in Canterbury and Wellington.

While flood waters are now receding, cleanup of the region is expected to take some time. “In most cases it will take months, rather than weeks, to completely restore your home(s)” the West Coast District Health board said in a release to local residents.

Advertisement Faafoi said on Sunday that about ​​1,000 people were still out of their homes in Westport.

The extreme weather comes as other parts of the world are reeling from flooding, including Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, London, Edinburgh, and Tokyo. The floods across western Germany and Belgium have killed at least 180 people. In the same period, the western US and Canada have been hit by unprecedented extreme heatwaves, which led to hundreds of deaths.

Strong quake hits offshore near Panama, no damage reported

A strong earthquake struck off the southern coast of Panama on Wednesday near the border with Costa Rica, although there were no immediate reports of damage and authorities said a tsunami was not expected.

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said the earthquake had a 6.9 magnitude and hit at a depth of 2 km (1.2 miles) about 321 km (200 miles) southeast of Costa Rica's capital, San Jose.The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at a 6.8 magnitude.

Quakes of that magnitude can cause severe damage.

"Regarding the earthquake we felt in almost the entire country, we report that we have no damage to public infrastructure or personal injuries," said Alexander Solis, head of Costa Rica's National Emergency Commission.

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