Natural Disasters

“In just over a year, the Clarence Valley and Kempsey have experienced drought, floods, bushfires and now another flood. Many other communities on Australia’s east coast are also dealing with their third or fourth significant natural disaster since 2019” (The Guardian, March 23, 2021).

The year 2020 brought a massive locust plague that caused widespread destruction of crops and livelihoods in East African nations (Deutsche Welle, January 5, 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic has only added to the catastrophe, and about 35 million people have been left in a state of “food insecurity.”

“Volcanoes that have been quiet for decades are rumbling to life in the eastern Caribbean, prompting officials to issue alerts in Martinique and St Vincent and the Grenadines as scientists rush in to study activity they say has not been observed in years” (The Guardian, December 31, 2020). The most recent alert has been issued for the La Soufriere volcano on St. Vincent, where the government has warned that an eruption could occur with less than 24 hours’ notice.