Latest news with #naturalDisasters
Japan Times
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
Emperor gives video speech at U.N. event on water and disasters
Emperor Naruhito delivered a keynote speech via video at the Seventh Special Thematic Session on Water and Disasters held at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Tuesday. In the 11-minute prerecorded speech given in English, the Emperor extended his sympathies to those affected by recent natural disasters, such as a major earthquake that struck Myanmar in March this year and a powerful temblor that hit the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture in January 2024. He mentioned an artificial waterway constructed in the city of Koriyama in Fukushima Prefecture with the cooperation of Dutch engineers during the country's Meiji Era (1868-1912). Emperor Naruhito also touched on his official trip to Indonesia in 2023, during which he inspected an erosion-control facility built through Japan's technological assistance. Water "has become the foundation for friendships and partnerships between people and regions," he said, adding that he "sincerely" hopes that people will be encouraged "to take new action" to tackle water-related issues around the world. The speech was recorded Thursday. Emperor Naruhito, who has been studying water issues, has either attended in person or delivered video speeches at such U.N. sessions since his time as Crown Prince.
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Indonesia's Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki volcano erupts, sending ash cloud 11 miles in the air
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia's rumbling Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki erupted Monday, sending a column of volcanic materials as high as 18 kilometers (11 miles) into the sky and depositing ash on villages. Indonesia's Geology Agency said in a statement it recorded the volcano unleashing an avalanche of searing gas clouds down its slopes during the eruption. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The country's volcano monitoring agency had increased the volcano's alert status to the highest level after an eruption on June 18, and more than doubled an exclusion zone to a 7-kilometer (4.3-mile) radius since then as eruptions became more frequent. An eruption of Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki in November killed nine people and injured dozens. It also erupted in March. The 1,584-meter (5,197-foot) mountain is a twin volcano with Mount Lewotobi Perempuan in the district of Flores Timur. Indonesia is an archipelago of 270 million people with frequent seismic activity. It has 120 active volcanoes and sits along the 'Ring of Fire,' a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
NHK
03-07-2025
- Business
- NHK
Taiwan mango industry takes a bruising
As a dessert or juice, Taiwan mangoes are beloved. But natural disasters and climate change have hurt production and sent prices soaring. Farmers and vendors are working hard to preserve this mainstay of Taiwan's fruit industry.
Japan Times
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
NOAA budget cuts to gut U.S. climate research and slash jobs
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is proposing cutting about 18% of its workforce and slashing $1.5 billion from its budget, including terminating programs to protect coastal communities and research that supports better forecasts and natural disaster prediction. At least 2,256 positions, out of 12,596, have been targeted for elimination, according to a budget estimate released Monday. NOAA's Oceanic and Atmospheric Research office, described as "the engine that drives the next-generation' of science and technology, will be eliminated, with some of its functions going to other departments. The string of cuts and eliminations outlined in the budget include the termination of the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, aimed at helping sustain coastal communities and economies. The budget would also terminate a program that provides research grants to academic institutions and nongovernmental organizations. "This is the big one, it would be catastrophic,' said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Even if only half of it happens it would still be catastrophic.' The budget comes amid U.S. President Donald Trump's cuts to climate research and federal weather forecasting agencies, reductions that critics say will diminish the ability to predict weather and erode the quality of weather models as fewer observations are made. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick pushed back against some of these criticisms in a congressional hearing earlier this year, saying the agency will use automation and artificial intelligence to cover the gaps. NOAA is responsible for forecasting weather through its National Weather Service, as well as protecting U.S. oceans. It is a sweeping agency under the Department of Commerce, which has its own uniformed service and operates a fleet of aircraft, ships and satellites. A wide range of industries depend on NOAA data, especially energy and commodity markets as weather impacts demand and crop yields. Hurricane forecasting will suffer, said James Franklin, a retired atmospheric scientist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Progress on building better models to track and forecast nature's most powerful storms would "come to a near stop,' he said. A recent study showed forecast improvements since 2007 have saved the U.S. economy $5 billion per storm that makes landfall, Franklin said. "That's four times the annual National Weather Service budget and we had five landfalling U.S. hurricanes last year.' The cuts would not just affect climate change research, but also many aspects of long-term weather, Swain said. A number of high-profile labs, including the National Severe Storms Lab that was made famous by the movie Twister, would be impacted. "It would mark the end of the era when the American government had the best and the brightest,' Swain said. The agency will continue to oversee U.S. fisheries. However, it will transfer its responsibility for enforcing parts of the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the document said. NOAA will prioritize marine mining and energy production. The new reductions are in addition to cuts and retirements made early this year. The proposed 2026 fiscal year budget represents about a $1.5 billion reduction from 2025 funding. "For a trivial cost savings we're now going to start turning the clock back,' Franklin said. "Stopping the progress we've made and instead start watching forecasts degrade as things break and there's no one to keep them running.' Franklin said once the labs are closed down, the decision can't simply be reversed by the next election. "It would take years or decades to recover,' he said. NOAA referred all requests for comment to the White House, which did not immediately respond.
News.com.au
26-06-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
Laser giving ‘superhero vision' following natural disasters
Helicopter-mounted laser scanners are going where emergency personnel cannot following natural disasters, helping to spot unstable slopes, sinkholes, structural problems and flood-prone zones before they become deadly. The technology was recently deployed by Bennett + Bennett, a surveying company with offices in Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Northern Rivers, following Cyclone Alfred. The firm is one of only a handful in the Southern Hemisphere with the Ultra Rich Aerial Laser Scanning technology, which works like 'giving city planners superhero vision from above'. While the human eye sees trees, buildings and seemingly solid ground, the RIEGL VUX-160 LiDAR laser scanners fire off millions of precise laser beams to reveal what's hidden to the naked eye and the problems that traditional surveys might miss entirely. 'The technology fires two million laser pulses per second through the air and can even penetrate vegetation,' Bennett + Bennety general manager of spatial team Liam Thierens said. 'Each pulse measures distance to whatever it hits, building up a rich 3D picture of what's actually there versus what you can see from the surface. 'Traditional surveys might miss stress lines, depressions or other defects, but this technology captures it all. 'It's like having detailed blueprints of areas that have never been properly mapped before.' From 300m above, the technology can detect objects as small as a coffee cup and measure distances accurately within millimetres, turning what used to be weeks of dangerous ground work into hours of safe aerial mapping. Bennett + Bennett CEO Craig Wood said that when a natural disaster strikes, the team could map the damage in days instead of weeks, allowing for councils, first responders and recovery teams to make critical decisions faster. 'But more importantly, we're identifying risks before they become disasters,' Wood said. 'That hidden sinkhole, that unstable slope, that flood-prone area that looks perfectly safe, we find these invisible threats before they can harm anyone.' The technology is a far cry from the traditional way to survey an area on foot using wooden pegs, he said. But it is not just disaster-affected areas that are being surveyed. The technology is also being used on major projects such as Queens Wharf, the Maroochydore City Centre, Cross River Rail, Snowy Hydro 2.0 and the new Coomera Hospital. Ultra Rich Aerial Laser Scanning works by mounting sophisticated LiDAR laser equipment onto helicopters or light aircraft. The system sends millions of laser pulses per second toward the ground, with each pulse measuring the exact distance to whatever it hits, whether that's a tree canopy, building roof, or the ground beneath vegetation. The result is an incredibly detailed 3D point cloud containing billions of data points that reveal not just what's visible on the surface, but what lies beneath vegetation, structures, and other obstacles. This data is then processed into actionable intelligence for councils, developers, engineers, and emergency responders. 'Every scan helps create safer communities, smarter cities, and more resilient infrastructure,' Wood said. Cyclone Alfred menaced the Queensland coastline from February 21 to March 9, reaching category four intensity while offshore on February 27. It then travelled down the coast and crossed over Bribie Island as a category one system on March 8. 'Alfred caused significant damage to southeast Queensland and northeastern New South Wales through damaging wind gusts, heavy rainfall with subsequent flooding impacts and severe coastal erosion of beaches,' a statement from the Bureau of Meteorology said. 'Heavy rainfall was recorded for a prolonged period over northeastern NSW and southeast Queensland.'
