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According to a National Police report, four men and a four-year-old girl were struck and killed by lightning in Prey Veng, Koh Kong, Battambang and Kratie province on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The report said Doung Sarath, 50, was killed on Wednesday evening in Prey Veng province's Peamchor district when he was walking to a rice field about 800 metres from his home to bring his cow in from the rain.
© Chris Wattie/ReutersLocal residents look inside a collapsed coastal house in the wake of Hurricane Irma in Vilano Beach, Florida.
Lloyd's of London has posted its first loss in six years, after what the insurer described as "one of the costliest years for natural catastrophes in the past decade".
The iconic insurance market reported an overall pre-tax loss of £2bn for last year, down from a profit of £2.1bn the year before, despite gross written premiums climbing to £33.6bn from £29.9bn.
Major claims in 2017 were more than double the cost of the previous year, at £4.5bn, which led to an underwriting loss of £3.4bn, compared with profit of £500m in 2016.
This led the group's combined ratio to deteriorate to 114 per cent from 97.9 per cent - a combined ratio of less than 100 per cent means a firm is profitable.
A series of huge storms in the second half of 2017, including Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, left homes and businesses across the south coast of the US and the Caribbean destroyed.
Earthquakes in Mexico and wildfires in California added to the financial losses due to natural disasters, with one study putting the total cost of global disasters last year at $306bn (£218bn).
Comment: The costs of natural disasters are likely to increase in the coming years. See also: World sees rapid upsurge in extreme weather says report
According to the Police Public Relations Officer for Mulanje, Gresham Ngwira, the deceased are Frank Smart and James Lipenga who both hail from Mothiwa Village in the area of senior chief Mabuka in Mulanje.
Ngwira has told Malawi24 that the incident occurred on Tuesday 20th March 2017 in the noon hours and the two were pronounced dead upon arrival at Mulanje District Hospital.
"The incident happened Tuesday at around afternoon at Lauderdale trading centre following rains accompanied by thunder and lightning.
The huge 40ft giant was spotted by a dog walker after it became stranded on a stretch of beach
The giant mammal was spotted by a dog walker after it became stranded on a stretch of shoreline near Monifieth in Scotland.
The British Divers Marine Life Rescue team was scrambled to the area when the sighting was made at 3pm yesterday, but by the time they arrived the whale had died.
Drone footage of the whale showed its body lying on its side in in shallow water off the beach on the north bank of the Firth of Tay on the east coast.
A Category Four hurricane which slammed into the Dominican Republic and Haiti in 2016 triggered major floods
In Europe, where precise data reaches back decades, the number of severe floods has jumped five fold since 1995, according to the report, which updates a 2013 assessment.
"There has been, and continues to be, a significant increase in the frequency of extreme weather events," said Michael Norton, environmental programme director for the European Academies' Science Advisory Council.
"They underline the importance of avoiding greenhouse gases, which are fundamentally responsible for driving these changes," he told AFP.
Comment: And still they continue to push the man-made climate change/global warming lie despite over 31K scientists having signed a petition against the global warming agenda.
For impacts that cannot be avoided, he added, "this makes climate proofing all the more urgent."
In Europe, efforts to shore up defences against river flooding have proven effective: despite an increase in frequency of such events, economic loses on the continent have remained static.
"Rather than just coping with disasters after they strike, we need to shift to proactive management of all drivers of risks," commented Munich Climate Insurance Initiative director Soenke Kreft, who did not contribute to the report.
In the United States, however, the damage wrought by storms doubled, on average, from $10 billion in 1980 to $20 billion in 2015, adjusted for inflation, according to the report, based in part on data from insurance giant Munich Re's NatCatSERVICE.
The update also assessed new findings on possible changes in the Gulf Stream, powerful ocean currents running between the Arctic region and the Caribbean that warm the air in northwestern Europe and the US eastern seaboard.
Comment: For more information on extreme weather from around the world, check out our Earth Changes Summaries. The latest video: SOTT Earth Changes Summary - February 2018: Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs
To understand how and why these extreme weather events are occurring read Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection by Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk.
© TSA
© TSA
Comment: For more information on extreme weather from around the world, check out our Earth Changes Summaries. The latest video: SOTT Earth Changes Summary - February 2018: Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs
And read : Ice age on the way: Gulf Stream is slowing down faster than ever, scientists say
© AFP 2018/ Eric BARADAT
"Federal offices in the Washington, DC area are closed. Emergency and telework-ready employees required to work must follow their agency's policies, including written telework agreements," OPM said in a statement.
The snowfall began late Tuesday and is expected to strengthen throughout the day. The National Weather Service issued a Winter Storm Warning for the Washington area, forecasting up to 8 inches (21 cm) of snow.
A bigger shovel needed?
More than 30 ski areas are located across Spain and although the majority, including most of the largest centres, are in the Pyrenees in the Southeast, this time the really big snowfalls have been occurring in the country's northerly Cantabrian Mountains which stretch for over 300 km (180 miles) across northern Spain, as well as to the west on the Portugese border.
The latest figures this week show up to 85cm (nearly three feet) of snow since Sunday.
Comment: On another continent during the same time period: Amazing amounts of March snowfall at ski resorts across western North America - 5 meters for Squaw Valley, California
Heavenly Ski Resort
It's the West and California that is having the most amazing snowfall once gain. At Squaw Valley there's now been 5 metres of snow since the start of March, two metres of that falling in 48 hours at the end of last week. So cover is looking exceptional for the spring skiing period.
Comment: As reported on the 21st of March several lightning strikes have also killed 4 people in Uttar Pradesh, India: