Disasters

"Natural disasters caused $109 billion in economic damage last year, three times more than in 2009, with Chile and China bearing most of the cost, the United Nations said Monday."

"Safety audits by state and local authorities, along with more citizen oversight, could have forced Bayer CropScience to fix longstanding problems that caused an August 2008 explosion that killed two Institute plant workers, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board said in a report issued Thursday."

"As South Africa declares a national disaster due to flooding, other countries in the region hold their breath while water levels continue to rise."

"A massive California rain event -- one expected to occur once every 200 years -- would far surpass destruction caused by a "Big One" earthquake, causing more than $700 billion in damage and hobbling the state's economy for decades, federal scientists are warning."

Federal investigators Wednesday outlined allegations of safety violations as the likely factors that combined to produce the huge explosion that killed 29 miners on April 5 at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine.

"Legally required water systems at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia were not functioning properly before the April 5 explosion that killed 29 mineworkers, according to multiple sources familiar with the disaster investigation."

"In an emotionally charged meeting this week sponsored by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, fishermen, Gulf residents and community leaders vented their increasingly grave concerns about the widespread health issues brought on by the three-month-long disaster."

"For the scientists aboard the WeatherBird II, the recasting of the Deepwater Horizon spill as a good-news story about a disaster averted has not been easy to watch. Over the past seven months, they, along with a small group of similarly focused oceanographers from other universities, have logged dozens of weeks at sea in cramped research vessels, carefully measuring and monitoring the spill's impact on the delicate and little-understood ecology of the deep ocean."

"Brazil is suffering its worst-ever natural disaster after mudslides near Rio de Janeiro killed more than 500 people, the latest toll showed Friday."

"Flooding in Sri Lanka has forced more than one million people out of their homes, the government said Thursday as it began distributing emergency food, clothing and bedding."