10 killed by floods in Madagascar

At least ten people have died after heavy rains in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, rendering over 500 people homeless, Malagasy authorities said Tuesday.

“Floods are common in Madagascar, especially in the rainy season between October and April. But yesterday they were exceptionally heavy”

Lovandrainy Ratovoharisoa, forecaster, the General Directorate of Meteorology

According to reports, most of the victims were trapped in landslides or collapsed houses, especially in the deprived neighborhoods of the suburbs of Antananarivo, which has nearly 1.3 million inhabitants.

spokeswoman of the Office of Risk Management and Disaster (BNGRC) of the Ministry of Interior, Sonia Ray said More than 100 mm of water fell during the night from Monday to Tuesday, warning that “the worst is yet to come in the next 24 hours,”. She added, the more rains are expected throughout January.

According to forecasts, the Indian Ocean island will be hit by heavy rainfall in the coming days, with an even higher peak on Thursday.

“We expect a cyclone at the end of the week on the east coast,” Lovandrainy Ratovoharisoa, a forecaster at the General Directorate of Meteorology told AFP…READ ON

Scientists Are Racing to Understand the Fury of Tonga’s Volcano

On December 20, Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai—an underwater volcano in the South Pacific topped with a diminutive and uninhabited island—awoke from a seven-year slumber. The volcano spluttered and crackled, creating a large plume of ash. Ten thousand miles away, in England, Simon Proud, a satellite data researcher at the University of Oxford, began to monitor the twitching volcano using an array of satellites.

“Volcanologists couldn’t believe what they were witnessing.”

As 2021 ticked into 2022, what had appeared to be the beginnings of an almighty eruption seemingly calmed down. Then, early in the morning on January 14 local Tongan time, a 12-mile-high plume of ash pierced the sky. The volcano became increasingly turbulent, and hundreds of lightning discharges shot out of the maelstrom every second, bombarding the land and ocean. And one day later, in the late afternoon of January 15, satellites captured a cataclysm in action…READ ON