January 13, 2020

Earth has been a particularly dangerous place in recent weeks. Airplane crashes, military clashes, terror attacks, and political unrest have taken a toll on human life and happiness lately, but it is a series of natural disasters that has caused the most trouble. A typhoon ravaged the Philippines, deadly flash floods hit Indonesia, bushfires continued to rage in Australia, a measles epidemic continued to kill in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and a series of earthquakes rattled Puerto Rico.

Firefighters confront a bushfire near the Blue Mountains town of Bilpin, New South Wales, on Dec. 19, 2019. Credit: © 1234rf/Shutterstock

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Typhoon Phanfone (also called Ursula) struck the Philippines, producing high winds and flooding that killed 105 people in the Visayan Island provinces of Biliran, Capiz, Iloilo, and Leyte. Phanfone was a Category 2 storm (moderate strength) with sustained winds of more than 90 miles (150 kilometers) per hour. Storm surges and deadly flash floods hit communities just as families were gathering to celebrate the Christmas holiday. Thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed.

On New Year’s Day in Indonesia, abnormally heavy monsoon rains caused flash floods that killed 66 people and displaced hundreds of thousands of others in Jakarta, the capital. Some 14.5 inches (37 centimeters) of rain fell on New Year’s Eve, causing the Ciliwung and Cisadane rivers to overflow. Floodwaters submerged more than 150 neighborhoods and caused landslides in the Bogor and Depok districts on the outskirts of Jakarta. Flood water levels in some areas peaked at more than 13 feet (4 meters). Electric power was cut off, and closed schools and government buildings were converted into emergency shelters.

On January 7, the World Health Organization announced the 6,000th death from measles in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since an epidemic began there in 2019. More than 300,000 suspected measles cases have been reported in the DRC—a nation also troubled by recent terror attacks. The epidemic has continued and grown because of low vaccination coverage, malnutrition, weak public health systems, outbreaks of other epidemic-prone diseases (such as Ebola), and the difficulty of getting health care to people in remote areas.

In Puerto Rico, after several smaller earthquakes, a 6.4-magnitude temblor struck the southwestern part of the island on January 7. The earthquake, the strongest to hit Puerto Rico in more than 100 years, killed one person, toppled hundreds of structures, and forced a state of emergency. Many people lost their homes, the island briefly lost electric power, and schools and public offices were closed. In the 10 days before the 6.4-magnitude earthquake, the United States Geological Survey recorded hundreds of temblors in Puerto Rico—including 10 of 4-magnitude or greater.

A number of major bushfires have lately devastated southeastern Australia. Since September, the wild fires—mostly in New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria—have burned more than 25.5 million acres (10.3 million hectares), an area the size of South Korea. The bushfires have destroyed more than 2,100 homes and killed 27 people and hundreds of millions of animals. On January 8, the Australian government ordered the mass slaughter of thousands of wild camels and horses that have invaded rural towns looking for water. Many people are without electric power and telecommunications in Australia’s southeast, and some were without drinking water and other supplies. Smoke has obscured the city skies of Canberra, Melbourne, and Sydney. The bushfires followed a three-year drought that experts link to climate change.

February 1, 2018

Bird watchers in Australia were recently surprised as several species of predatory birds appeared to be spreading bushfires as a novel hunting technique. For many years, wildlife biologists have documented raptors that fly around the edges of wildfires, practicing what the scientists call “fire-foraging.” The birds pounce on small mammals and reptiles flushed from the bush by advancing flames. A new report in the Journal of Ethnobiology, however, details how birds also seem to be intentionally spreading wildfires to new, unburned areas of grassland to increase their hunting chances. The report suggests that birds, like humans, have learned to use fire both as a tool and as a weapon.

Bushfire smoke darkens Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. A recent scientific report has backed up Australia’s age-old stories of “firehawks” that spread bushfires to catch prey. Credit: © AP Photo

Bushfires are wildfires common throughout Australia due in part to the country’s hot and dry climate. Many wildfires start in the remote countryside known to Australians as the bush. Bushfires can be extremely destructive, especially if they reach urban areas. The fires damage forests and farmland and can kill animals and people and destroy property. In recent years, as global warming has helped make drought conditions worse in Australia, bushfires have been an increasing threat.

Bird watchers have long reported witnessing black kites (Milvus migrans), whistling kites (Haliastur sphenurus), and brown falcons (Falco berigora) hunting prey on the edges of wildfires. Recently, however, birds were seen picking up smoldering twigs with their beaks or talons. The birds then carried the twigs to other areas of dry bush up to a half mile (1 kilometer) away, where they dropped the sticks like lit matches, igniting a new blaze. The birds then began feasting on the animals trying to escape the new flames.

Australian “firehawks” could potentially spread bushfire damage (seen at left) to areas the fire might not naturally reach (at right). Credit: © Julian Smith, EPA/Landov

In the past, Aboriginal people in Australia also used fire to flush animals from the bush. They also say that so-called “firehawks” have been doing the same for thousands of years. The birds’ behavior is not new, then, but has been long known to local people of the Northern Territory, Western Australia, and Queensland. Firehawks are even mentioned in stories of the Dreamtime, an ancient time when the first beings existed.

Despite the dangers posed by bushfires, forest rangers in Australia regularly light controlled fires for the benefit of the environment. Small occasional fires can rid an area of underbrush. If an area goes unburned for a long time, the accumulated underbrush can fuel a much larger and more dangerous fire. However, rangers must now take into account the risks posed by raptors that may spread controlled burns into new areas where the fires could grow out of control.

December 28, 2015

During the Christmas weekend, weather patterns around the world produced a variety of extremes, from torrential rains and flooding in North America, South America, Europe, and Australia to fierce snowstorms in North America and raging wildfires in Australia.

Fire-damaged buildings are seen alongside a house that survived the Christmas Day bushfires at Separation Creek in the Otway Ranges south of Melbourne, Australia, on Dec. 27, 2015. Credit: © Julian Smith, EPA/Landov

Heavy storms pounded the Midwestern and Southern United States with rain and snow. Tornadoes with winds of up to 200 miles (320 kilometers) per hour tore through Texas, killing at least 11 people. Meanwhile, some areas of New Mexico received more than 1 foot (0.3 meter) of snow. At least 43 people died throughout the United States as a result of these storms and the flooding that followed. Meteorologists noted that higher-than-average temperatures contributed to the severity of the storms.

In Australia, a lightning strike in the southeastern state of Victoria on December 19 caused a series of wildfires known as bushfires. The fires grew in size and intensity and destroyed more than 100 homes on Christmas Day. Meanwhile, monsoon rains caused major flooding in the Northern Territory, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate their homes. At the same time, in South America, more than 100,000 people fled their homes in areas of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay to escape flooding caused by heavy rainfall. In northern England in the United Kingdom, downpours led to extensive flooding as dozens of rivers overflowed.

Authorities noted that El Niño conditions were to blame for much of the extreme weather. An El Niño is a part of the interaction between Earth’s atmosphere and the tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean. El Niños occur about every two to seven years, and can affect climate throughout the world. The term El Niño originally referred to a current of warm water that flows southward along the coast of Ecuador and Peru, in western South America, every winter. About every two to seven years, the warm current is abnormally strong, lasts for an unusually long time, and is accompanied by changes in the winds and precipitation across the entire tropical Pacific region. For this reason, El Niño came to refer to the entire interaction of the ocean and atmosphere during the period of the stronger-than-normal current. According to the World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations affiliate, this year’s El Niño is the strongest in more than 15 years.

Other World Book articles: 

• Christmas Eve Storms Hit United States (Dec. 25, 2015) – A Behind the Headlines article
• Meteorology
• Weather