Lightning strike killed four people and injured eight in Murambi Sector, Karongi District on Sunday, January 5.
The Mayor of Karongi District, Gerald Muzungu, confirmed that the incident happened on Sunday evening when 12 people were seeking shelter from rain in a nearby house under construction.
"Eight people who were traumatized were taken to Kirinda hospital," he said, urging residents to avoid seeking shelter from risky areas during rain and thunderstorms.
He said the burial for the deceased would take place on Tuesday.
The Ministry in Charge of Emergency Management recommends installing lightning rods as a way to prevent lightning strikes.
The extraordinary landslide year of 2024 is now complete, so I'm able to provide my initial analysis of the fatal events that have occurred. Remember that this is an analysis only of fatal events- there have been literally hundreds of thousands of non-fatal landslides too, but at present we have no mechanism to collate these reliably.
I will seek to publish this data in a journal in the coming months, so the analysis presented here is provisional.
The methodology and background analysis is outlined in Froude and Petley (2018), which is an open access paper. There are also reflections on these analyses in Fidan et al. (2024), which is also open access.
As I have been describing through the year, 2024 was exceptional in every way in terms of fatal landslides. In total, I recorded 708 fatal landslides (excluding those triggered by an earthquake), costing 4,492 lives. In terms of the number of fatal landslides, this is the highest annual total that I have ever recorded, breaking the previous record by over 100 events.
Comment: Some of the global reports of deadly landslides due to heavy rainfall in just the last 2 months of 2024:
In the US, winter storm Blair is bringing the "heaviest snowfall" and coldest temperatures in over a decade.
The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued alerts for more than 30 US states, spanning from Kansas to the East Coast, warning of "whiteout conditions" and roads becoming impassable.
Up to 250 million people across states are in the storm's path, facing dangerously low temperatures and hazardous travel conditions. Around 63 million people in the US are under some kind of winter weather advisory. This disruptive storm has covered roads with snow and also brought snowfall —even thundersnow — to several cities such as Kansas and Kentucky that typically don't see much at all, prompting the National Guard to come to the aid of stranded motorists.
School closures, flight disruptions and trees falling over are only to be expected. On Sunday, Virginia state police alone reported at least 135 crashes, thankfully without any fatalities.
Winter storm Blair is the result of an 'Arctic outbreak', which results from a polar vortex — a 'very cold air mass that typically originates in the Siberian region of Asia, crosses over the north pole into Canada and pushes south and east into the lower United States,' the NWS explains.
Anita Dangazele Scrolla.africa Sun, 05 Jan 2025 11:06 UTC
A lightning storm in the Eastern Cape struck Nomcamba Village in Ngqeleni this week, killing two family members and several goats.
Nomakhaladi Silaza, 47, and her daughter Nomakhwezi Silaza, 23, who was a Walter Sisulu University student and set to be the family's first graduate, died in the tragic incident.
Two other children from the Silaza family were injured and taken to hospital.
The family of seven lives in a two-room mud house and is struggling to raise funds to bury their loved ones.
A magnitude-6.2 earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, south of La Paz Department, El Salvador, at around 11:18 on Jan. 5. The epicenter was about 29 km (18 miles) southwest of Playa Costa Del Sol and 68 km (42 miles) south of San Salvador.
The tremor occurred at a depth of about 49 km (30 miles), and shaking was probably felt in most of El Salvador and areas in southeastern Guatemala, including the capital, Guatemala City, western and southern Honduras, and northwestern Nicaragua.
There have been no initial reports of damage or casualties as a result of the earthquake. It could take several hours until authorities can conduct comprehensive damage assessments, especially in remote areas. Aftershocks are possible over the coming days. The event has not prompted any tsunami advisories.
Rhodes saw severe weather again on Saturday evening, with streets filling with water and mud.
The emergency 112 number sent out an alert at 2am Sunday calling on residents to limit their movements.
The bad weather hit the areas of Faliraki and Kalythia, and then spread to southern Rhodes and the city of Rhodes. Houses were also flooded in the Pylona area, while the streets were filled with water, mud and stones.
According to local news two people were evacuated from a trapped car on a flooded road in the Afantou area. Both have been transported to a safe location.
Civil Protection forces are in full mobilization. Crews from the South Aegean region and the municipality of Rhodes, as well as volunteer groups, are on standby to deal with any problems.
Rhodes was also hit with severe flooding in early December. Areas in the island were declared in a state of emergency by the Civil Protection Agency following severe flooding due to the Bora storm.
Mount Marapi in West Sumatra erupted again on Saturday morning, January 4, 2025, spewing a 1,000-meter-high ash column. One of the officers at the volcano's observation post, Trian Ahmadi, recorded the eruption.
"The ash column is observed to be gray, thick in intensity, and inclined to the north and northeast," he said in an official statement after the incident.
According to Trian, the volcano eruption was recorded on a seismogram with a maximum amplitude of 30.3 millimeters for 1 minute 40 seconds.
"The eruption is still ongoing as this report is being made," he said at 09:51, on Saturday.
He confirmed that Mount Marapi is still on alert. The monitoring team has asked locals, tourists, and climbers to stay away from the area within a 3km radius of the Verbeek crater.
People are urged to use masks covering the nose and mouth to avoid respiratory problems. People living high up in the valley and along the banks and rivers flowing from the summit of Mount Marapi are also advised to be aware of the threat of cold lava. "Especially during the rainy season," Trian said.
Algerian photographer Karim Bouchetata captured video of snow falling over parts of the Sahara Desert on New Year's Day. A storm system moving through Europe helped to deliver the cold air across northern parts of the continent
For the second time in two years, a blanket of snow covered parts of the Sahara Desert in northern Africa, creating a rare and unexpected sight.
On New Year's Day, Algerian photographer Karim Bouchetata captured video of snowflakes falling over Ain Sefra, a town in western Algeria about 30 miles east of the Moroccan border.
The video showed dunes blanketed in fresh snow, but streets appeared to remain passable as the snow cover melted on warmer surfaces.
A 5-year-old Renton boy was injured in an attack by a coyote on New Year's Eve. The injuries were non-life-threatening, and the child was released from a hospital on the same day. State wildlife officials urge parents to use caution when coyotes are sighted and to know how to respond in case of an attack.
Fast action by mom
It could have been far worse, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) said this week. They credited quick action by the boy's mother for preventing more significant injuries after the wild canine attempted to drag the boy into a greenbelt in the city's Maplewood Heights neighborhood.
The attack happened at around 6 p.m. on December 31. According to the WDFW, the animal bit the boy in the upper body and pulled him to the ground before trying to drag him. The child's mother rushed at the coyote, forcing it to release the child.
Although the animal stayed near the area of the attack until WDFW officers arrived, the coyote ran into a forested area nearby after the officers tried to kill it.
An earthquake of magnitude 5.8 struck Ethiopia, the United States (US) Geological Survey and the German Research Centre for Geosciences said on Saturday.
The quake's epicenter was located 88 miles (142 km) east of the capital, Addis Ababa, and was at a shallow depth of 10 km(6.2 miles), the USGS said.
The volcano in northeastern Ethiopia was showing signs of starting to erupt on Friday, prompting authorities to move residents to temporary shelters, a state-affiliated broadcaster and a government geological office said.
To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted so as to be most useful, I should answer, 'by restraining it to true facts and sound principles only.' Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.
¬ Reply by the U.S. President to John Norvell, 1807
- Thomas Jefferson
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Comment: Some of the global reports of deadly landslides due to heavy rainfall in just the last 2 months of 2024:
- Landslides, floods strike West Java, Indonesia - 10 killed, 2 missing
- 7 feared dead in landslide due to continuous downpour caused by Cyclone Fengal in Tamil Nadu, India - year's worth of rain in just 36 hours
- At least 20 killed, 100 missing as landslides after heavy rains bury homes in Uganda
- Landslide and flash floods after torrential rains leave 27 dead in Sumatra, Indonesia
- Girl missing as heavy rains in Bolivia cause landslide in capital La Paz
- Landslide triggered by heavy rain kills 10, including children, in eastern Congo
- Landslide amid heavy rain in Indonesia's central Java claims lives of 4 family members
- Super Typhoon Man-yi fells power lines, causes tidal surges in Philippines, at least 7 dead in landslide - 6th major storm in less than a month
- 12 bodies found after deadly landslides following torrential rain in Cameroon on November 6th - dozens of people still missing
- At least 6 killed in landslide after heavy rain in Konta, Ethiopia
More reports from 2024 and prior years can be found here.