Ahead of New Year, UK, Americas fight like Chennai

Nearly ten deaths have been reported in South America and nearly a dozen in Texas, US. Experts say the trauma of displacement will leave a shadow over people’s mood and impact on their celebrations.

At a time when the climate change summit in Paris a few weeks ago attracted record global participation, the deluge in many countries has come as wakeup call on the effect of global warming, with experts saying extreme droughts and floods would be inevitable. Much like what Chennai, Kanchipuram and Thiruvallur districts experienced in early December, heavy rains over the weekend in many parts of northern England resulted in severe flooding affecting an area approximately 325 km, impacting cities such as York, Leeds and Manchester. 

Mudslides have killed at least four people in Brazil, one of several South American countries where torrential rains and flooding now have claimed at least 10 lives, officials have said. Authorities said fatalities from the current violent weather include two deaths in Argentina and four in Paraguay. “The Paraguay River has swollen almost to eight meters. Not even the most dramatic forecasts called for that in December,” said Julian Baez, Paraguay’s weather service director. Meanwhile, a mudslide killed a total of four people in two homes in southern Brazil Itapecerica da Serra, state officials said. In north eastern Argentina, two people were killed and about 20,000 were evacuated from their homes by flooding caused by a rise in the level of the Uruguay River, authorities said. Uruguay, between Argentina and Brazil on the South Atlantic, has had to evacuate more than 11,000 people.  El Nino is the name given to a weather pattern associated with a sustained period of warming in the central and eastern tropical Pacific that can spark deadly and costly climate extremes. Last month, the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation warned the phenomenon was the worst in more than 15 years, and one of the strongest since 1950.