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DATING A 56 MENTALIST
WRESTLING EINSTEIN
UNLOCK YOUR MIND
DIRTY HABIT 84
LION MAN 100
DIGGING UP THE TRUTH ON COAL
LIFE AND DEATH WITH DAVE SALMONI
NATURAL DISASTERS
DECEMBER 2011 SG $8.50 RM 14.95 PHP 250 HK $45 Rest of Asia
AUD $7.90 NZ $9.90 THB 250 IDR 60,000 US$10
NATURE
PAGE 36
NATURE'S
The deadliest year for natural disasters in two decades was 2010 — until the curtain lifted on 2011. Is Mother Nature trying to tell us something? Rachel Sullivan writes
THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT? FOR RESIDENTS OF PORT-AU-PRINCE, CAPITAL CITY OF HAITI, IT FELT THAT WAY, AFTER THE DEVASTATING QUAKE STRUCK IN EARLY 2010
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PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
COVER STORY
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The year 2010 was a grim one for the world, by any measure. According to the Geneva-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, a total of 373 natural disasters killed almost 300,000 people in just one year, affecting 208 million others and costing almost US$110 billion. Topping the most lethal list were the January earthquake in Haiti, which saw the loss of more than 222,500 lives, and the Russian summer heatwave, which caused 56,000 deaths. 38 DISCOVERY CHANNEL MAGAZINE
Of the top 10 death-causing disasters, five occurred in Asia, including an earthquake in China in April, and another in Indonesia in October. Between May and August, there were floods in China, along with mudslides, landslides and rock-falls, triggered by heavy rain. In Pakistan, monumental floods covered a fifth of the region in July and August.
WET CHRISTMAS
In December 2010, massive flooding inundated northern Australia, first swamping regional cities before overwhelming Queensland's capital, Brisbane, in early January. Many towns
around Brisbane were pulverised too. Over 200,000 people were effected, at a cost of around US$14 billion. In the midst of mopping-up activities by the volunteer “sludge army”, word came that a severe tropical cyclone, which was dubbed Yasi, was bearing down on north Queensland. Bracing for the worst, many counted themselves lucky when the storm crossed the coast in a lightly populated area, minimising damage, though the cost still ran into the millions. Weary emergency workers breathed a sigh of relief. On the other side of the Pacific, their peers were gearing up for action, as mudslides in Brazil saw one of the country’s worst natural disasters.
PHOTOS (FROM LEFT): CORBIS; AFP
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LEFT: A WOMAN STANDS IN FRONT OF HER FLOODED HOME IN MANGHAL KHAN BROHI VILLAGE, IN PAKISTAN BELOW: THE CHILEAN EARTHQUAKE IN FEBRUARY 2010 CAUSED SEVERE DAMAGE TO INFRASTRUCTURE
the city of Christchurch to safer ground, the media had barely packed up its gear when the next body blow came. Japan was rocked by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami, which killed approximately 20,000 people and caused the Fukishima Dai-ichi nuclear reactor meltdown. At the height of the emergency, much of the Pacific seaboard was on high tsunami alert. Even at press time, the disaster's impact continues to linger, thanks to ongoing concerns over radiation and its effect on the slow process of rebuilding (see page 46 for full coverage). In April, hailstorms in China’s southern Guangdong province destroyed crops and killed at least 18 people. In June, huge tornadoes swept through the infamous tornado alley in the United States, reducing entire communities to matchsticks; while the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers swelled and flooded, in one of the largest and most damaging flood events in a century.
JANUARY 12, 2010
QUAKE SHOCKS RIP THROUGH HAITI. THE DEATH TOLL IT CAUSES IS UNCERTAIN, WITH CASUALTIES NUMBERING BETWEEN 50,000 AND 316,000. MORGUES ARE RAPIDLY OVERWHELMED. RECOVERY IS SLOW: IN OCTOBER, CHOLERA BREAKS OUT IN REFUGEE CAMPS, WITH ROUGHLY 50 NEW DEATHS REPORTED EACH DAY
PORT-AU-PRINCE
MORE MAYHEM
SHAKY ISLES
The floodwaters were still receding along Australia’s ancient drainage routes when the world was rocked by another event: a devastating earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, on February 22, 2011. The magnitude-6.3 earthquake was in fact the much more destructive aftershock of a 7.1 quake that hit the city in September 2010. Yet it caused widespread damage to the city’s buildings and killed 181 people. Its impact was more severe than the September quake, because its epicentre was only five kilometres below the city and right in the middle of a population centre. With parts of the city still off-limits, and talk turning to suggestions of moving
At the time of writing, the southwest United States was in the grips of a devastating drought and massive dust storms, while unseasonal snowstorms paralysed other parts of the country. In Asia, large parts of Bangkok, in Thailand, were under water, afflicted by the worst floods in half a century. Further afield in eastern Turkey, more than 600 people were killed by a magnitude-7.2 earthquake. It all reads like the setting for a Hollywood action film about the end of the world. So are natural disasters really getting worse, driven by climate change or some other forces of nature? Or are we simply more aware of them? “Disasters make for dramatic media coverage and so we are all very aware of what is happening around the globe,” says Dr John McAneney from the Risk Frontiers Natural Hazards Research Centre at Macquarie University, in Australia. “The world is perceived to be an increasingly dangerous place. Disaster losses are increasing, because the world has more people living in harm’s way, with more to lose.” He admits that not all of it is commonplace, however. “What is unusual is the recent clustering of very large earthquakes with magnitudes around 9.0,” he adds. “We are looking to these to see if the patterns are just random coincidences or not.” Whatever the answer is, we will still struggle to answer the million-dollar question of why. “Even if the clustering were not random, at the moment we do not have a physical mechanism that could explain the correlation between these events,” McAneney says.
CENTRAL CHILE IS ROCKED BY AN 8.8-MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE. THE COUNTRY IS HIT BY WIDESPREAD BLACKOUTS AND 1.5 MILLION PEOPLE ARE DISPLACED FROM THEIR HOMES. THE QUAKE ALSO TRIGGERS TSUNAMIS THAT HIT AS FAR AWAY AS HAWAII AND JAPAN
SANTIAGO
JULY 2010
HEAVY MONSOON RAINS PUT A FIFTH OF PAKISTAN UNDER WATER. CROPS AND INFRASTRUCTURE ARE RUINED, PLACING THE ECONOMY IN JEOPARDY, AS WELL AS KILLING MORE THAN 1,700 PEOPLE, A LACK OF SUFFICIENT AID MEANS REBUILDING IS SLOW, WITH MANY CAMPS STILL AT RISK OF WATERBORNE DISEASES
ISLAMABAD
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AFTER THE HAITI 2010 QUAKE HIT, US PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA ANNOUNCED A US$100 MILLION AID PACKAGE
FEBRUARY 27, 2010
CENTRE OF ATTENTION
SUMMER 2010
FLIGHTS ARE CANCELLED AND CITIES CHOKE AS A RECORD-BREAKING HEATWAVE STRANGLES RUSSIA. FIREMEN STRUGGLE TO QUENCH FOREST FIRES THAT BELCH SMOG, AND ALMOST 5,000 PEOPLE LOSE THEIR LIVES. PRESIDENT MEDVEDEV ANNOUNCES ON TV THAT “PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING IS BURNING”
MOSCOW
DECEMBER 2010
UNUSUALLY FRIGID TEMPERATURES IN EUROPE CAUSE CHAOS ACROSS THE CONTINENT. POWER FAILURES, TRANSPORT DISRUPTION AND DEATHS AFFECT COUNTRIES SUCH AS POLAND, WHICH MEASURES RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES OF MINUS 33 DEGREES CELSIUS
WARSAW
DECEMBER 2010
THE QUEENSLAND REGION OF NORTHEAST AUSTRALIA SUFFERS A SERIES OF FLOODS THAT AFFECT AT LEAST 70 TOWNS. THREE QUARTERS OF THE REGION IS DECLARED A DISASTER ZONE
CANBERRA
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The Asia-Pacific region does have some reason to feel aggrieved. The region experiences over 70 percent of the world’s natural disasters, according to Dr Wei-Sen Li, Deputy Executive Secretary at Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction. “Most Asia-Pacific countries are located on the edge of a tectonic plate, and there is a higher incidence of earthquakes along the so-called Ring of Fire,” explains Li, who is also Steering Committee Chair of APEC’s Emergency Preparedness Working Group (EPWG). “Between earthquakes and typhoons, Asia-Pacific countries suffer on average between two and four major natural disasters each year.” Population pressures add to the burden, he notes. “There are many densely populated cities in the region, including the megacities of Manila, Bangkok and Shanghai, whose populations exceed 10 million,” he says. “The impact of any disaster that hits these regions is multiplied significantly, and exacerbated by inappropriate land use, deriving from rapid development.” Deforestation can result in landslides, for example, while building on floodplains leaves residents open to inundation when floods hit, as well as vulnerable to the impact of sea level-rise, which is already making its mark in Thailand, Vietnam and many low-lying Pacific Islands, adds Li. What is marked now though, is the domino effect these disasters can have. “While the scale of natural disasters themselves may or may not be any worse than what has gone before, we are now seeing more compound disasters,” he says. “Japan is a classic case. The earthquake caused a tsunami, which caused the nuclear emergency, and has resulted in long-term problems with agriculture and other flow-on economic effects.”
NOT THE WORST
Might 2011 be shaping up to be worse than other years? Not even close, according to Dr Jonathan Nott’s research. A professor of physical geography at Queensland’s James Cook University, in Australia, Nott researches extreme natural events such as tsunamis and tropical cyclones, including the reconstruction of long-term natural records of extreme events. “Extreme events leave footprints in the landscape that persist for thousands of years,” he says. “It is important to remember that the conditions that lead to one extreme weather event, such as a cyclone, also lead to another, such as widespread flooding. But as far as the region goes, it has been far more active in the past,” he adds.
CAUGHT FAST IN THE GRIP OF AN UNUSUALLY LONG, HARSH WINTER, FISH IN SAINT PETERSBURG'S PONDS, IN RUSSIA, BECOME DESPERATE AS DISSOLVED OXYGEN IN THE WATER IS GRADUALLY DEPLETED. THEY CLUSTER IN VAST, THRASHING MASSES AT SHRINKING HOLES IN ICE, GASPING FOR BREATH
COVER STORY
DOOMSDAY DEBUNKED Remember the Y2K scare? It came and went without a whimper, due to adequate planning and some measured analysis of the situation. Impressive special effects aside, December 21, 2012, will not be the end of the world as we know it. It will, however, be a winter solstice. Below, NASA senior research scientist Dr Don Yeomans and his colleagues answer several questions that are frequently asked regarding 2012.
PHOTO: AP
What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in 2012? The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed towards Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012. Then these two fables were linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar, which is at the winter solstice in 2012. Hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012. Does the Mayan calendar end in December 2012? Just as your calendar at home does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar
does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period. But then, exactly as your calendar begins again on January 1, another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar. Is the Earth in danger of being hit by a meteor in 2012? Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, though big hits are very rare. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey, to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. Source: NASA
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PHOTO: RUSSELL WATKINS/DEPARTMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
MILLIONS OF SPIDERS SCRAMBLED UP TREES TO ESCAPE THE FLOODS IN PAKISTAN IN MID-2010, BECAUSE THE WATERS HAVE DRAINED SO SLOWLY, MANY TREES BECAME COCOONED IN WEBS, A NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN PHENOMENON IN PAKISTAN
COVER STORY
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FEBRUARY 22, 2011
NEW ZEALAND SUFFERS ITS SECOND-DEADLIEST NATURAL DISASTER IN HISTORY WHEN CHRISTCHURCH IS SHAKEN BY A 6.3-MAGNITUDE QUAKE. AFTERSHOCKS FROM THIS PRIMARY EARTHQUAKE ARE FREQUENT IN THE COMING DAYS AND MONTHS
PHOTOS (FROM TOP): AFP; GETTY IMAGES
WELLINGTON
MARCH 11, 2011
A TRIPLE-DISASTER RAVAGES JAPAN AFTER ONE OF THE STRONGEST EARTHQUAKES IN RECORDED HISTORY TRIGGERS A TSUNAMI, WHICH IN TURN CAUSES A NUCLEAR EMERGENCY AT THE FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR POWER PLANT COMPLEX
TOKYO
APRIL 2011
STORMS AND TORNADOES CUT A SWATHE OF DESTRUCTION THROUGH THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES. ALABAMA ALONE SUFFERS MORE THAN 100 DEATHS, AND UP TO A MILLION PEOPLE ARE LEFT WITHOUT POWER
MONTGOMERY
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TOP: A CAR IS LEFT ALMOST LITERALLY WRAPPED AROUND A TREE AFTER A TORNADO RIPPED THROUGH EL RENO, IN THE US STATE OF OKLAHOMA BOTTOM: MANY BUILDINGS IN CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND, WERE DAMAGED BY QUAKE TREMORS AND DEEMED UNSAFE
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" WHILE THE SCALE OF NATURAL DISASTERS THEMSELVES MAY OR MAY NOT BE ANY WORSE THAN BEFORE, WE ARE NOW SEEING MORE COMPOUND DISASTERS " That might be all about to change, though. The climate changed noticeably in 1977 as a result of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, a recently identified phenomenon operating on time scales of two to three decades and causing major shifts in the Pacific Ocean climate, Nott explains. This is different to the Southern Oscillation (El Niño and La Niña), which is a two to seven-year cycle, and is complicated in the northern Pacific by different parts of the region being active at different phases of the oscillation. “We have been in a quiet period for a long time, and are due to come out,” he says.
QUAKES AND STORMS?
Nott has also pondered whether there are any links between earthquakes and tropical cyclones. And he is not alone. “In 1924, a paper was published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, asking whether there was any link between the great Kantō earthquake that left many Japanese cities in ruins on September 1, 1923, and the typhoon in Tokyo Bay that devastated the city on the same day,” Nott says. Between the two events, as well as the fires and public unrest that followed, the disasters accounted for over 100,000 lives. “I do not know if there is a link, or whether it is just a random coincidence,” says Nott. “There are lots of earthquakes, and at least some cyclones every year.” Whether this link exists or not, proof may be almost as far away as a cure for these disasters. “Any suggestion of a link between events is absolute speculation at this stage,” he adds.
RISKY BUSINESS
The Christchurch earthquakes were unusual, says McAneney of Risk Frontiers, at Macquarie University in Australia, because the aftershock caused more damage than the original quake. “However, given that it occurred very close to the central business district and the ground motions were high, the building damage
JULY 2011
DROUGHT ACROSS THE HORN OF AFRICA LEADS TO A FAMINE THAT CREEPS ACROSS SOMALIA, ETHIOPIA AND KENYA, LEAVING THE REGION CRITICALLY MALNOURISHED AND CHILDREN PARTICULARLY VULNERABLE. ALTOGETHER MORE THAN 13.3 MILLION PEOPLE ARE IN NEED OF ASSISTANCE IN THE AREA
was not unexpected — it was mostly older unreinforced masonry built before the development of modern building codes.” The development of housing on liquefiable soil, which behaves like a liquid when subjected to quake stress, was also a significant factor in the Christchurch losses, he adds. To that end, governments such as Australia’s need to consider risk in their land-use planning decisions, says McAneney. “We have too many people living within fire-prone bushlands and, as we saw recently, on floodplains.” APEC’s Li notes that while governments have an important role in reducing risk through urban planning controls and incentives for changed practices, the private sector is also crucial. “Traditional methods of disaster preparation do not work for compound disasters on this scale,” he notes. “We need more participation from the private sector through business continuity planning and other initiatives that not only protect business operations, but also help keep the community functioning.” “In the long term, private businesses tend to be more flexible than government, which is why APEC is encouraging public-private partnerships for disaster management,” says Li.
MORE INTENSE
“Natural disasters will always occur, but thanks to climate change, weather events are becoming more intense,” says Li. As such, the extremes appear to be confronting us more often. “Once we only read about these worst case scenarios in textbooks. But now, we regularly see record-breaking rains and typhoons. As the region becomes increasingly urbanised, we need to emphasise disaster risk reduction in urban areas,” he adds. This includes modern codes and standards. “We saw in New Zealand that cities that were designed and built 30 to 50 years ago cannot accommodate the current situation,” he says. “We need to look at how we can adapt to changing circumstances.” And keep a disaster kit handy, just in case.
ETHIOPIA
SOMALIA KENYA
OCTOBER 24, 2011
THE GROUND SHAKES UNDER A POWERFUL SHOCK IN THE TURKISH CITY OF VAN. SHATTERED BUILDINGS TRAP HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE UNDER DEBRIS
ANKARA
OCTOBER 2011
DELUGES OF RAIN CAUSES WATER LEVELS TO RISE DRASTICALLY, FLOODING THAILAND’S STREETS, BRINGING CITIES LIKE BANGKOK TO A STANDSTILL AND KILLING MORE THAN 500
BANGKOK
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