Deadly floods are wreaking global havoc

Climate change is blamed as a primary reason for devastating floods and drought across the world. Warming temperatures mean the atmosphere can hold more water vapor. Evaporation also increases, and the atmosphere becomes like a giant sponge.

By

World News

September 1, 2022 - 1:59 PM

Manayunk Canal as seen from Manayunk Bridge on Sept. 2, 2021, after heavy rain from Hurricane Ida flooded Philadelphia and the region.

Torrential downpours claimed the lives of more than 1,000 in Pakistan, where almost half a million people are in relief camps. A massive deluge crashed across Mississippi in the past week, leaving the roughly 150,000 residents of capital city Jackson without reliable access to clean drinking water. Cascades of rain recently poured into Seoul’s subway stations and turned streets into rivers in one of the worst storms in more than a century.

The world has been swept by a series of deadly floods in recent weeks, destroying homes, inundating croplands, snarling mining operations and wreaking economic devastation.

In Pakistan alone, officials estimate the damage at more than $10 billion — a toll that was part of what forced the country to secure a $1.1 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund in order to avert an imminent default. The country is now facing a looming food crisis with large swathes of farmland under water. Downpours have hit places as varied as India, the U.S. South and the U.K.

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