Mocoa
At Risk

Killer Colombia Mudslide a Climate Change Wakeup Call

MOCOA, Colombia, April 4, 2017 (ENS) – Torrential rains caused three rivers to burst their banks in the Colombian city of Mocoa early Saturday morning sending water and debris crashing into homes. The flooding and mudslides have claimed 254 lives and left hundreds of people missing. […]

ambassadors
At Risk

Nuclear Nations Boycott Weapons Ban Treaty Talks

NEW YORK, New York, March 29, 2017 (ENS) – Nuclear powers, including the United States, Britain and France are among nearly 40 countries boycotting the first UN conference in more than 20 years on a global nuclear weapons ban treaty at the United Nations this week. […]

factory
At Risk

Israeli Illegal Pesticides Poison Occupied West Bank

AMMAN, Jordan, February 20, 2017 (ENS) – The illegal trade and the manufacture and use of toxic pesticides in Israeli illegal settlements, result in human rights violations and contribute to the food insecurity in the Occupied West Bank, an international fact-finding mission concludes. […]

spillway
At Risk

Fresh Storms Could Reactivate Oroville Dam Crisis

OROVILLE, California, February 19, 2017 (ENS) – The emergency at California’s Oroville Dam appears to be over for the moment, although during the next few days severe weather is expected to hit the area at the western edge of the Sierra Nevada mountains, as hundreds of thousands of residents return to their homes. […]

spillway
At Risk

‘Extreme Peril’ at California’s Lake Oroville Dam

SACRAMENTO, California, February 13, 2017 (ENS) – More than 180,000 people near Lake Oroville in Butte County, California were evacuated from their homes Sunday as officials warned the auxiliary emergency spillway at Lake Oroville Dam could fail, causing widespread, severe flooding along the Feather River Basin. […]

fire
At Risk

‘Extreme’ Chilean Wildfires Worst in Decades

SANTIAGO, Chile, February 6, 2017 (ENS) – In Chile’s worst fire disaster in 50 years, the South American country has lost over half a million hectares to more than 100 wildfires that first flared up in mid-January. The blazes have frustrated firefighters’ efforts to control them, with new hot spots emerging daily. […]

shore
At Risk

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Erodes Louisiana Shoreline

PASADENA, California, January 30, 2017 (ENS) – “Dramatic, widespread shoreline loss” is what government scientists call the pattern revealed in new NASA/U.S. Geological Survey annual maps of the Louisiana marshlands where the coast was heavily coated with oil during the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. […]

marchers
At Risk

Trump Resistance Movement Builds on Millions of Marchers

WASHINGTON, DC, January 23, 2017 (ENS) – More than one million people took part in women’s marches in Washington, DC, New York and dozens of other cities across the country Saturday on President Donald Trump’s first full day in office. Millions more marched in cities across the USA and in 57 countries. […]

Tsavo
At Risk

Environmental Crime Threatens Global Peace, Security

LYON, France, December 30, 2016 (ENS) – Environmental crime is a national priority for at least 80 percent of countries, with the majority reporting new and more sophisticated criminal activities that increasingly threaten peace and security, finds a new survey by INTERPOL and UN Environment (UNEP). […]

survivors
At Risk

Deadly Indonesian Earthquake Displaces Thousands

JAKARTA, Indonesia, December 10, 2016 (ENS) – While most people were asleep, a shallow earthquake of magnitude 6.5 struck Indonesia’s Aceh Province in Northwest Sumatra at 5:03 am local time on December 7, leaving more than 100 people dead and injuring or displacing thousands of others. […]

earthquake
At Risk

Earthquake Rattles New Zealand, Evacuees Flee Tsunami

WELLINGTON, New Zealand, November 14, 2016 (ENS) – A severe earthquake struck just after three o’clock Monday morning local time near New Zealand’s South Island. The strong, long-rolling quake was felt across the South Island; thousands are evacuating after a tsunami warning from Civil Defence authorities. […]

smoke
At Risk

Mosul Battle Triggers Environmental Damage

NAIROBI, Kenya, November 3, 2016 (ENS) – Civilians in Northern Iraq are suffering suffocation and respiratory illnesses due to what appears to be a scorched-earth policy employed by retreating ISIL militants following the launch of a major military offensive to retake the city of Mosul. […]

At Risk

U.S. Antarctic Program Scientist Dies in Snowmobile Fall

ARLINGTON, Virginia, October 25, 2016 (ENS) – A Scottish glaciologist with the U.S. Antarctic Program was fatally injured Saturday when the snowmobile he was riding fell into a crevasse. Dr. Gordon Hamilton, 50, of the University of Maine Climate Change Institute, was working on White Island in the Ross Archipelago when the accident occurred. […]

Florida National Guard
At Risk

Deadly Hurricane Matthew Batters Florida, Carolinas

MIAMI, Florida, October 8, 2016 (ENS) – Residents and emergency workers along Florida’s northeast coast took a deep breath Saturday morning as Hurricane Matthew moved north, leaving four people dead, flooding streets and damaging hundreds of miles of beachfront communities before making landfall in South Carolina. […]

DRC
At Risk

UN Forces Rescue Hundreds from DRC National Park

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of the Congo, September 12, 2016 (ENS) – Acting on humanitarian grounds at the request of the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations mission in the country has “extracted” hundreds of individuals from a national park in the DRC. […]