Devastating natural disasters show the need for resilient, sustainable and inclusive infrastructure

The eruption of the La Soufrière volcano after lying dormant for 40 years has plunged the Caribbean nation of St Vincent and Gerardines into unimaginable levels of devastation and suffering.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes. Schools and businesses have been closed. Entire villages are covered in grey ash, where once there was only lush Caribbean green. Clouds of ash have reached even neighbouring islands such as Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada and Saint Lucia.

Normally, a story like this would have touched the hearts of many as images of a towering and smoking La Soufrière were beamed and printed across the world. But with the COVID-19 pandemic still saturating news reports, this is but another tragedy upon an already devastating situation…

Brazilians float on flooded streets as rivers swell in Amazonas

The rivers have been swelling for weeks in Brazil’s Amazon region, and residents in a town that bills itself as ‘The Venice of Amazonas’ traded motorcycles for canoes, clambering atop fresh-laid planks inside their homes to stay dry.

“We are accustomed here, but this is going beyond the limits”

Mr Raimundo Sampaio Sobreira

Anama, home to 14,000 people on a tributary of the Solimoes River that flows toward capital Manaus, is just one municipality of dozens in Amazonas state that has seen life upended by unusual rainfall.

Amazonas’s civil defence secretariat on Thursday warned the flood could soon be biggest recorded in the last century, and said 350,000 people have already been affected…