An estimated 20 million people in southern Africa are facing what the United Nations calls “acute hunger” as one of the worst droughts in more than four decades shrivels crops, decimates livestock and, after years of rising food prices brought on by pandemic and war, spikes the price of corn, the region’s staple crop. Malawi, […]
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There were warnings of high wildfire danger in the days before a deadly blaze overtook the town of Lahaina in Hawaii last year, but the Maui Fire Department did little to get crews set in areas at risk and then struggled to launch firefighting vehicles once the blaze began consuming the town, according to an […]
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Many of us realize climate change is a threat to our well being. But what we have not yet grasped is that the devastation wreaked by climate change is often just as much about headline-grabbing catastrophes as it is about the subtler accumulation of innumerable slow and unequal burns that are already underway — the […]
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Doses of cholera vaccine are being given to patients as fast as they are produced and the global stockpile has run completely dry, as deadly outbreaks of the disease continue to spread. This does not shock anyone in the field of emergency epidemic response because the vaccine stockpile has been precariously low for years. The […]
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The earthquake that hit the Northeast on Friday morning rattled nerves but did not do much damage. Still, it left many New Yorkers wondering how afraid they should be of a bigger one hitting closer to the city. The answer? It’s hard to say. Some news reports suggest that a large earthquake is “due” in […]
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At a general store in New Jersey, near the epicenter of the earthquake, the sound was so loud that the staff thought a truck had crashed into the building. Five miles away, at some riding stables, the ground shook so forcefully that it sent three horses galloping around the ring. Within hours, a custom T-shirt […]
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California officials temporarily shut down part of Highway 1 on Wednesday and warned residents to evacuate one of the nation’s most scenic coastal stretches as an incoming bout of spring rain threatened to worsen a road collapse near Big Sur. The emergency orders, issued by the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office and the California Department of […]
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Since its founding in 2010 by the chef José Andrés after a devastating earthquake in Haiti, the relief group World Central Kitchen has turned up at some of the globe’s biggest disasters, crises and conflicts, with the goal of doing what chefs do best: feed people. The nonprofit group teams up with local food providers, […]
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