Storms, floods, fires and other extreme weather events led to more than 43 million displacements involving children between 2016 and 2021, according to a United Nations report.
More than 113 million displacements of children will occur in the next three decades, estimated the UNICEF report released Friday, which took into account risks from flooding rivers, cyclonic winds and floods that follow a storm.
Full Story
Whales, dolphins and seals living in U.S. waters face major threats from warming ocean temperatures, rising sea levels and decreasing sea ice volumes associated with climate change, according to a first-of-its-kind assessment.
Researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration examined more than 100 stocks of American marine mammal species and found more than 70% of those stocks are vulnerable to threats, such as loss of habitat and food, due to the consequences of warming waters. The impacts also include loss of dissolved oxygen and changes to ocean chemistry.
Full Story
Hundreds of rescuers dug through slushy debris and fast-flowing, icy water Friday in a search for survivors after a glacial lake overflowed and burst through a dam in India's Himalayan north, a disaster that many had warned was possible for years.
The flood began in the early hours of Wednesday, when water overflowed a high mountain lake with enough force to break through the concrete of a major hydroelectric dam downstream. It then poured into the valley below, where it killed at least 31 people. One hundred are still missing, officials said, while thousands of people have had to flee their homes.
Full Story
Far more people are in harm's way as they move into high flood zones across the globe, adding to an increase in watery disasters from climate change, a new study said.
Since 1985, the number of the world's settlements in the riskiest flood zones has increased 122%, compared to 80% for the safest areas, according to a study in Wednesday's journal Nature by researchers at The World Bank. The authors looked at settlement extent and expansion using satellites instead of population, with the world's built-up regions growing 85% overall from 1985 to 2015.
Full Story
Soldiers and firefighters were battling to control a new wildfire on Spain's Tenerife island that has forced some 3,000 people to leave their homes for safety, the Canary Islands government said Thursday.
The blaze, which started Wednesday, is centered on the towns of Santa Úrsula and La Orotava in the mountainous northeast of the island, away from the main tourist areas in Tenerife's southwest.
Full Story
Typhoon Koinu swept southern Taiwan on Thursday, injuring 190 people but causing no deaths as it brought pounding rain and record-breaking winds to the island, leading to school and office closures.
Koinu, which means "puppy" in Japanese, made landfall early Thursday in Cape Eluanbi, the southernmost tip of Taiwan, and is expected to weaken as it moves west toward Guangdong and Fujian provinces in southern China.
Full Story
Rescue workers were searching for more than 100 people on Thursday after flash floods triggered by a sudden heavy rainfall swamped several towns in northeastern India, killing at least 14 people, officials said.
More than 2,000 people were rescued after Wednesday's floods, the Sikkim State Disaster Management Authority said in a statement, adding that state authorities set up 26 relief camps for more than 22,000 people impacted by the floods.
Full Story
Pope Francis shamed and challenged world leaders on Wednesday to commit to binding targets to slow climate change before it's too late, warning that God's increasingly warming creation is fast reaching a "point of no return."
In an update to his landmark 2015 encyclical on the environment, Francis heightened the alarm about the "irreversible" harm to people and planet already under way and lamented that once again, the world's poor and most vulnerable are paying the highest price.
Full Story
Three homes were destroyed by a forest fire and a man was injured by a falling tree in the Bega Valley region of southeastern Australia, prompting a government leader to warn on Wednesday that a "horror" wildfire season was approaching.
Scores of wildfires have recently raged across the states of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania as Australia's driest September on record and unusually warm weather have brought an early start to the annual wildfire season, which peaks during the Southern Hemisphere summer.
Full Story
Twenty-three Indian army soldiers were missing Wednesday after a cloudburst triggered flash floods in the northeastern state of Sikkim, the army said in a statement.
The flooding occurred along the Teesta River in Lachen valley, the statement said, adding that some army camps and vehicles were submerged under watery mud and that search efforts were underway. The army said water released from a nearby dam also caused water levels to rise.
Full Story


