Migrants arrive daily at New Delhi railway stations from across India fleeing floods and a debilitating drought. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

By Neeta Lal
NEW DELHI, Jul 26 2016 (IPS)

Deepa Kumari, a 36-year-old farmer from Pithoragarh district in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, lives in a one-room tenement in south Delhi’s Mongolpuri slum with her three children. Fleeing devastating floods which killed her husband last year, the widow landed up in the national capital city last week after selling off her farm and two cows at cut-rate prices.

“I was tired of putting back life’s pieces again and again after massive floods in the region each year,” a disenchanted Kumari told IPS. “Many of my relatives have shifted to Delhi and are now living and working here. Reorganising life won’t be easy with three young kids and no husband to support me, but I’m determined not to go back.”Of Uttarakhand's 16,793 villages, 1,053 have no inhabitants and another 405 have less than 10 residents.

As flash floods and incessant rain engulf Uttarakhand year after year, with casualties running into thousands this year, burying hundreds under the debris of collapsing houses and wrecking property worth millions, many people like Kumari are abandoning their hilly homes to seek succour in the plains.

The problem, as acknowledged by Uttaranchal Chief Minister Harish Rawat recently, is acute. “Instances of landslips caused by heavy rains are increasing day by day. It is an issue that is of great concern,” he said.

Displacement for populations due to erratic and extreme weather, a fallout of climate change, has become a scary reality for millions of people across swathes of India. Flooding in Jammu and Kashmir last year, in Uttarakhand in 2013 and in Assam in 2012 displaced 1.5 million people.

Cyclone Phailin, which swamped the coastal Indian state of Orissa in October 2013, triggered large-scale migration of fishing communities. Researchers in the eastern Indian state of Assam and in Bangladesh have estimated that around a million people have been rendered homeless due to erosion in the Brahmaputra river basin over the last three decades.

With no homes to call their own, migrants displaced by flooding and drought live in unhygienic shanties upon arriving in Delhi. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

Daunting challenges

Research done by Michael Werz at the Center for American Progress forecasts that South Asia will continue to be hard hit by climate change, leading to significant migration away from drought-impacted regions and disruptions caused by severe weather. Higher temperatures, rising sea levels, more intense and frequent cyclonic activity in the Bay of Bengal, coupled with high population density levels will also create challenges for governments.

Experts say challenges for India will be particularly daunting as it is the seventh largest country in the world with a diversity of landscapes and regions, each with its own needs to adapt to and tackle the impacts of climate change.

Several regions across India are already witnessing large-scale migration to cities. Drought-impacted Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh are seeing a wave of migration as crops fail. Many people have been forced to leave their parched fields for India’s cities in search of work. Drought has affected about a quarter of India’s 1.3 billion people, according to a submission to the Supreme Court by the central government in April.

Rural people have especially been forced to “migrate en masse”, according to a recent paper published by a group of NGOs. Evidence of mass migration is obvious in villages that are emptying out. In Uttaranchal, nine per cent of its villages are virtually uninhabited. As per Census 2011, of Uttarakhand’s 16,793 villages, 1,053 have no inhabitants and another 405 have less than 10 residents. The number of such phantom villages has surged particularly after the earthquake and flash floods of 2013.

The intersection of climate change, migration and governance will present new challenges for India, says Dr. Ranjana Kumari, director of the Center for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank which does rehabilitation work in many flood- and drought-affected Indian states. “Both rural and urban areas need help dealing with climate change. Emerging urban areas which are witnessing inward migration, and where most of the urban population growth is taking place, are coming under severe strain.”

Tardy rescue and rehabilitation

Apparently, the Indian government is still struggling to come to terms with climate change-induced calamities. Rescue and rehabilitation has been tardy in Uttaranchal this year too with no long-term measures in place to minimise damage to life and property. In April, a group of more than 150 leading economists, activists, and academics wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling the government’s response “listless, lacking in both urgency and compassion”.

The government has also come under fire for allocating a meagre 52.8 million dollars for climate change adaptation over the next two financial years, a sum which environmental experts say is woefully inadequate given the size of the country and the challenges it faces.

Experts say climate migration hasn’t been high on India’s policy agenda due to more pressing challenges like poverty alleviation, population growth, and urbanisation. However, Shashank Shekhar, an assistant professor from the Department of Geology at the University of Delhi, asserts that given the current protracted agrarian and weather-related crises across the country, a cohesive reconstruction and rehabilitation policy for migrants becomes imperative. “Without it, we’re staring at a large-scale humanitarian crisis,” predicts the academician.

According to Kumari, climate change-related migration is not only disorienting entire families but also altering social dynamics. “Our studies indicate that it’s mostly men who migrate from the villages to towns or cities for livelihoods, leaving women behind to grapple with not only households, but also kids, the elderly, farms and the cattle. This brings in not only livelihood challenges but also socio-cultural ones.”

Geetika Singh of the Centre for Science and Environment, who has travelled extensively in the drought-stricken southern states of Maharashtra as well as Bundelhkand district in northern Uttar Pradesh, says the situation is dire.

“We’ve seen tiny packets of water in polythene bags being sold for Rs 10 across Bundelkhand,” Singh said. “People are deserting their homes, livestock and fields and fleeing towards towns and cities. This migration is also putting a severe strain on the urban population intensifying the crunch for precious resources like water and land.”

A study titled “Drinking Water Salinity and Maternal Health in Coastal Bangladesh: Implications of Climate Change” 2011 has highlighted the perils of drinking water from natural sources in coastal Bangladesh. The water, which has been contaminated by saltwater intrusion from rising sea levels, cyclone and storm surges, is creating hypertension, maternal health and pregnancy issues among the populace.

Singh, who travelled extensively in Bangladesh’s Sunderbans region says health issues like urinary infections among women due to lack of sanitation are pretty common. “High salinity of water is also causing conception problems among women,” she says.

Until the problem is addressed on a war footing, factoring in the needs of all stakeholders, hapless people like Deepa will continue to be uprooted from their beloved homes and forced to inhabit alien lands.

A young resident of Tacloban in the Philippines walks through some of the damage and debris left by the Typhoon Yolanda, Dec. 21, 2013. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Jed Alegado and Angeli Guadalupe
MANILA, Sep 8 2015 (IPS)

Jun* is in chains, tied to a post in the small house that resembles a fragile nipa hut. His brother did this to prevent him from hurting their neighbours or other strangers he meets when he’s in a ballistic mood. Jun has been like this for three years now, but since Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines two years ago, his symptoms have worsened.

After the disaster, Jun lost his own house, his wife and his children. This psychological distress he went through triggered a relapse of his psychiatric illness. With no one else able to take care of him, Jun was taken by his brother to their family’s house.Climate change’s health impacts are inequitably distributed with the most vulnerable sectors like the elderly, children and pregnant women having the least capacity to adapt.

But since his brother is working and the other people in the house are their old, sickly and frail parents, no one can control Jun during his manic episodes. He has not been able to maintain his medications because his family can’t afford them and the free supply at the local health center doesn’t come consistently. For these reasons, the best option left for Jun’s brother is to put him in chains.

Impacts on mental health

A few more cases like Jun exist in Tacloban City and most likely, in other areas of the Philippines as well – both urban and rural. Typhoon Yolanda (also known as Typhoon Haiyan) struck the country on Nov. 8, 2013. It was a Category 5 super-typhoon with wind speeds ranging from 250 to 315 kph, killing at least 6,300 people and costing PhP 89 billion in damages.

Due to extreme loss and survivor guilt, at least one in 10 people here suffers from depression. But two years after the disaster, some survivors remain unaware of available mental health services. Others complain of the poor quality of services and scant supply of medications. Many survivors who are more affluent choose to consult psychiatrists in other cities to avoid the stigma.

As with most disasters, physical rehabilitation is prioritised. This is understandable and perfectly rational, but the mental health of the victims should not be forgotten.

According to the World Health Organization’s report on the Global Burden of Disease, mental disorders follow cardiovascular diseases as the top cause of morbidity and mortality in terms of disability-adjusted life years or the number of years lost due to ill-health, disability or early death.

Yet despite the staggering number of people affected, only an estimated 25 percent of them worldwide have access to mental health services. More than 40 percent of countries have no mental health policy and mental health comprises less than 1 percent of most countries’ total health expenditures.

Nowadays, climate change brings us more frequent and devastating natural disasters. In emergencies such as natural disasters, rates of mental disorders often double. Hence, attention to mental health should be doubled as well, especially in countries highly vulnerable to disasters such as the Philippines.

Being an archipelago and still a developing country, this is not surprising. According to the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security’s World Risk Index Report 2014, out of the 15 countries with the highest disaster risk worldwide, eight are island states, including the Philippines.

Ensuring health impacts in the negotiation text

Health advocates are quick to respond to this alarming issue. Groups led by the International Federation of Medical Students (IFMS) are ensuring that the issue of health and its impacts to climate change are included in the climate negotiating text.

Beginning from the Conference of the Parties (COP 20) in Lima, Peru last year which continued in Geneva last February, the group has been advocating for health to be back at the center of negotiations and in effect ensuring that parties will forge a strong climate agreement in Paris on December.

Last week’s Bonn climate negotiations – one of the few remaining negotiation days before the actual COP in December – proved to be an exercise in futility as negotiators keep dodging on the issue of a loss and damage mechanism, which, according to health advocates, is crucial for helping people affected by the health-related impacts of climate change.

According to IFMS, “there is a growing involvement of member states to include health in the negotiating text. As a group, we want to ensure that health is included in all parts of the negotiating document – preamble, research, capacity building, adaptation and finance.”

Indeed, the impacts of climate change go beyond environment, food security, land rights and even indigenous peoples’ rights. More importantly, climate change has both direct and indirect effects on health. Climate change’s health impacts are inequitably distributed with the most vulnerable sectors like the elderly, children and pregnant women having the least capacity to adapt.

Parties to the UNFCCC must see this alarming issue towards forging a fair and binding climate deal in December which will limit keep global warming below 2 degrees C and ensure adaptation mechanisms to the most vulnerable nations.

In the future, it is foreseen that wars will be fought over water not oil. Disasters nowadays may give us a glimpse of the worst to come when the staggering impacts climate change worsen and affect us in ways beyond what we can handle.

Yet, with the rapid turn of extreme weather events, what we are doing is not just for future generations. It is for us, who are living now on this planet. We are going to be the victims if we do not take responsibility as much as we can, as soon as we can.

*Name has been changed to protect his identity.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

By Desmond Brown
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Jun 15 2015 (IPS)

With less than six months to go before the next full United Nations Conference of the Parties also known as COP 21 – widely regarded as a make-or-break moment for an agreement on global action on climate change – Caribbean nations are still hammering out the best approach to the talks.

The Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) Director of Sustainable Development, Garfield Barnwell, said “the region’s expectations are extremely sober” with regards to COP 21, scheduled for Paris during November and December of this year. This is due to the poor response from the major emitting countries in addressing the issue of climate change."For the region, climate change magnifies the growing concerns regarding food security, water scarcity, energy security and the resource requirements for protection from natural disaster." -- CARICOM Chair Perry Christie

“An ideal 2015 agreement for the Caribbean would be one that first and foremost addresses the global rate of emissions and if that could be as close as possible to 1.5 degrees stabilisation of the global emissions level,” Barnwell told IPS.

“If there are commitments on the part of the major emitters meeting their commitments; and also if the international community would acknowledge the importance of adaptation and that they would provide adequate resources for all developing countries to address their adaptation needs, certainly that would be a good starting point with regards to further discussions in addressing the serious challenge of dangerous climate change.”

Barnwell said the region has been taking stock of what has been happening at the global level with regards to greenhouse gas emissions and “great concerns” remain concerning the responses from the major emitting countries.

He pointed to “the lack of action in meeting the commitments made in the past” on the climate change issue.

“The expectation is that there would be a number of announcements with regards to how the major emitters plan to meet their goals with respect to the expected discussions, but the (countries of the) region do, to a large extent,  have a measured level of expectation regarding the Paris talks in December.”

Caribbean countries are also trying their utmost to seek the mobilisation of resources to more aggressively implement their adaptation programmes at the national level.

“Adaptation is of great significance to us in the Caribbean because our region as a group contributes less than one percent of the total global greenhouse gasses. When we calculated the amount, it comes up to about 0.33 percent of global greenhouse gasses so mitigation is not an issue for the Caribbean given our contribution,” Barnwell said.

“However, it must be stated that the impact of both temperature rises and precipitation levels poses serious challenges for our survival as a region and a national security (concern) to many of our member states given that most of us are either islands or most of our populations and social and economic infrastructure reside on the coastal belt which brings into focus the issue of sea level rise which is of great concern to all our member states.”

Climate change poses significant challenges to the natural resource base of the Caribbean, with most countries having resource-based economies including tourism where there is great reliance on the sea in terms of the beaches which are a major source of attraction.

Some countries are also primary producers of agricultural crops, and the agricultural sector, like tourism, is significantly affected by climate change.

“We have a problem with regards to rising sea levels in terms of the oceans coming more inland and that poses a challenge not only for the beaches but also for the hotels and the airports that to a large extent are roughly about three centimetres away from the sea in many of our islands,” Barnwell said.

“For many of our islands, we are challenged and have been challenged by the impact of natural disasters and again as a result of rising sea levels and warming oceans, the potential for a greater impact of natural disasters poses some significant challenges in terms of the frequency and the impact.

“For those agriculture-oriented economies in the region, we also face challenges associated with the change in temperatures and also the precipitation rates with regards to patterns with respect to planting, with respect to reaping of our products. All these are significant problems with regards to how we have been living and the kinds of activities we’ve been engaged in. So climate change poses significant challenges for our region in terms of our livelihood and our survival,” Barnwell added.

At the just ended two-week Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, Caribbean negotiators maintained the pressure to limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level.

They noted that limiting global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius instead of 2 degrees Celsius would come with several advantages, including avoiding or significantly reducing risks to food production and unique and threatened systems such as coral reefs.

The Caribbean negotiators also requested that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ensure that the lowest marker scenario used in its 6^th Assessment Report is consistent with limiting warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Chairman of CARICOM and Prime Minister of The Bahamas Perry Christie said as a result of the impacts of climate change, the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC), which spearheads the technical work for CARICOM on this issue, estimates the cost of global inaction in the sub-region to be approximately 10.7 billion dollars per year by 2025 and that this figure could double by 2050.

He said the Caribbean is urging parties that have made pledges towards the initial capitalisation of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to enter into their contribution agreements with the GCF as soon as possible and scale up their contributions in line with the pledge for 100 billion dollars per year by 2020.

“For the region, climate change magnifies the growing concerns regarding food security, water scarcity, energy security and the resource requirements for protection from natural disaster,” Christie told IPS.

“Another significant threat is linked to the projected impact of climate change on public health, through an increase in the presence of vectors of tropical diseases, such as malaria and dengue, and the prevalence of respiratory illnesses.

“These diseases will affect the well-being and productivity of the workforce of the sub-region and compromise the economic growth, competitiveness and development potential of the Caribbean Community,” he said.

Meantime, Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerritt, who chairs the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), said they are constantly reminded that the power to bring about the desired change in the global climate system rests with those countries that are the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.

“We in the OECS are among the smallest of the small and despite or negligible contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, we are on the frontline as the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change,” Skerritt told IPS.

“For us, climate change and its related phenomenon are issues affecting our very survival and can be viewed as a matter of life and death.

“As an organisation comprising and representing the smallest of the small, ours is a solemn duty and responsibility to articulate and champion the cause of all our member states – those that are sovereign as well as those that are not; and those that are party to the UNFCC as well as those that are not.”

Skerritt said they have adopted this posture in the knowledge that climate change has absolutely no regard for political status and that it impacts, with equal severity, the islands and low-lying and coastal regions regardless of political or sovereign status.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

By Ramesh Jaura
SENDAI, JAPAN, Mar 19 2015 (IPS)

IPS Editor in Chief Ramesh Jaura talked to Professor Huang Haoming, Vice Chairman & Executive Director of China Association for NGO Cooperation (CANGO), about interaction for people-to-people cooperation in Northeast Asia​ in Sendai, Japan, during the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) from 14 to 18 March 2015.

Commercial logging and firewood extraction for domestic use have accelerated Myanmar's deforestation rates in the last three decades. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS.

By Amantha Perera
YANGON, May 6 2014 (IPS)

Between 2008 and 2013, when Myanmar remained largely closed off to the rest of the world, it suffered a terrible toll at the hands of nature that remained largely unknown.

In those five years, the country of 60 million suffered at least eight major natural calamites that killed more than 141,000 people and affected 3.2 million.

The worst of these was Cyclone Nargis in May 2008 that killed more than 130,000 and affected 2.4 million.Myanmar is still covered with some of the most pristine jungles in East Asia, but the deforestation rate is alarming.

Myanmar has been vulnerable to increasing extreme weather events like many of its neighbours. But as the Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group of Myanmar noted in an extensive analysis last year of the nation’s disaster preparedness levels, the dangers have been amplified because the country has been slow to take remedial measures against changing climate patterns.

The East Asian country’s ranking 167 out of 176 countries surveyed by The Global Adaptation Institute “is as much a reflection of Myanmar’s exposure to climate change as it is of the country’s low capacity to manage climate risks,” the report said.

Such under-preparedness comes at a terrible cost. The same report found that over 2.6 million people live in areas vulnerable to natural disasters ranging from cyclones in the south to earthquakes in the north.

Since the reformist Thein Sein government took office in May 2011, there has been renewed attention to put in place measures that will help the country meet the challenges posed by changing climate patterns.

“I think the government is pretty serious about taking action on this, they know how important it is,” Helena Mazarro, the focal point for disaster risk reduction in Myanmar at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told IPS.

In June 2013 the government unveiled the new Disaster Management Law and the National Natural Disaster Preparedness Working Committee under the President’s Office. A new building code is being formulated to make sure the current building boom does not undermine standards and put more people at risk.

On Apr. 1 this year a total ban on exporting of unprocessed timber was put in place to bring about controls on logging.

“Disaster preparedness levels have improved substantially since Cyclone Nargis. In mid 2013, Myanmar was significantly better prepared to respond to the approaching Cyclone Mahasen,” said Maciej Pieczkowski, programme manager with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Myanmar.

Mahasen caused limited damage and around 200 deaths. More than 120,000 persons were evacuated from the cyclone’s path in the western Rakhine region before the storm made landfall.

Pieczkowski said that after Mahasen the government carried out further evaluation of its disaster preparedness levels.

But despite the new disaster management law, coordination with the government and various non-governmental agencies is yet to be streamlined. While the international agencies tend to be structured along clusters working on different areas like emergency shelter or water or sanitation, the government still does not have such a structured approach, the OCHA’s Mazarro said.

The main government agency that coordinates relief and preparedness work is the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement. “We are trying to bring clarity to such coordination and further enhance the disaster management laws. It is a work in progress,” the OCHA official said.

Jaiganesh Murugesan, a disaster risk specialist with UN-HABITAT told IPS that while at the national level preparedness levels had improved, rural areas still lag behind. “The focus should be on long-term risk reduction while preparedness is essential for immediate work,” he said.

Peeranan Towashiraporn, director at the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC) said that lack of resources was a major concern given the list of vulnerabilities the country faces.

“Different geographical areas of Myanmar face different kinds of risks. The Delta region, as we have seen from Cyclone Nargis, could suffer from the impact of cyclone and coastal flooding. Rakhine state in the northwest is facing threats of cyclones, river and coastal flooding, earthquakes. The central plain along the Irrawaddy River faces not only the risk of flooding, but also earthquakes.”

Towashiraporn said that the new building code which takes into account threats posed by earthquakes and storms, would need to be implemented strictly to be effective.

Myanmar is still covered with some of the most pristine jungles in East Asia, but the deforestation rate is alarming. About half of the country is still covered in forest, but Myanmar could be losing 466,000 hectares of forest a year if not more, according to the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation (UN-REDD).

Between 1990 and 2005, its forest cover reduced by 18 percent. Many experts say deforestation has accelerated due to commercial logging and firewood extraction for domestic use.

The timber export ban that came into effect in April is partly aimed at controlling illegal logging. In the 12 months prior to the ban, export earnings through timber were estimated to be above one billion dollars, up from the average annual rate of between 600 to 800 million dollars, according to the Myanmar Timber Merchants Association.

Kevin Woods, the author of the report ‘Timber Trade Flows and Actors in Myanmar: The Political Economy of Myanmar’s Timber Trade’ told IPS that the government was making all the right statements but needed to shore up on implementation.

“The government also has plans to dramatically decrease the quota for cut logs. So far nothing has been implemented to the best of my knowledge, although there is increasing political will to see this through.”

Drenched in Havana. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Jun 10 2013 (IPS)

The new cyclone season in Cuba is forecast to be highly active, and it announced its arrival with intense rains that caused rivers to burst their banks and flooded extensive areas in the western province of Pinar del Río.

However, Andrea, the first named tropical storm of the year, did not reach hurricane force.

The heaviest rains fell in Pinar del Río, in the extreme west of this Caribbean island nation, starting in early June when a low pressure system built up in the Gulf of Mexico. It gradually turned into tropical storm Andrea, with maximum sustained wind speeds of 95 kilometres per hour and gusts of higher wind speed.

The western provinces of Artemisa and Mayabeque, adjacent to Havana, were also affected by the rains. The capital city suffered less intense rainfall than Pinar del Río.

Andrea moved away from the westernmost part of Cuba on Thursday Jun. 6, heading for U.S. territory, where it made landfall with maximum sustained winds of 100 km per hour on the west coast of the southeastern state of Florida.

A tropical storm becomes a category one hurricane when its winds attain speeds between 118 and 152 km per hour.

In Cuba, the persistent heavy rains have caused some damage but have also brought benefits.

“There has been a lot of rain around here, but the maize fields have really benefited. We also saved on irrigation water,” María Antonia Lemez, who works on a state farm in Mayabeque, told IPS. She said other crops were undamaged as well.

Even in Pinar del Río, the most affected province, it wasn’t all bad news, as its 24 reservoirs filled up with 187 million cubic metres of water in barely six days, raising the level of the reservoirs from 50 to 83 percent of total capacity, according to official figures.

According to preliminary reports in the newspaper Granma, whole towns and villages in that province, which is frequently in the path of tropical storms, are under water.

“All the lowlands are under water because of persistent rain or river flooding,” reported the newspaper, which estimated some 3,000 people were evacuated to relatives’ homes or shelters.

“The rains have been very heavy. In my house, which was repaired not so long ago, water started coming in through the cracks between the walls and the doors,” Sarilena Ramos, a Pinar del Río resident, told IPS over the phone.

Another woman, who requested anonymity, said that it hadn’t rained so much in Pinar del Río “for many years, even when there were hurricanes.”

Granma’s list of damages included some 40 tobacco curing barns. Seventy percent of the national production of tobacco leaf comes from Pinar del Río.

Agricultural damage was also significant, but the extent will not be known until the floodwaters recede, the woman said.

In Havana the rainfall was not heavy and reservoirs are no more than 30 percent full. The authorities were keeping an especially close eye on the coastal areas, which are prone to flooding, although the rain did not cause “a critical state” in any of the 15 municipalities of the capital, Granma said.

A report from the Climate Centre at the Institute of Meteorology says the rainy season in Cuba lasts from May to October and comprises approximately 80 percent of annual rainfall. The months of heaviest rainfall are May, June, September and October.

The report adds that rainfall depends on the influence of mobile weather systems from the tropics, such as tropical waves and low pressure areas over the Atlantic, and their interaction with systems in middle latitudes, as well as the presence of tropical cyclones, mainly from August to October.

The forecasting centre at the Institute of Meteorology predicts high activity this season, with the formation of an estimated 17 named tropical storms. Nine of these could reach hurricane category in the northern Atlantic ocean, which includes the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean sea.

Meteorologist Maritza Ballester was quoted by the Cuban media as saying there was a high risk that at least one hurricane would reach Cuba, based on the number forecast and the oceanic and atmospheric conditions expected this year.

However, Ballester stressed that the predictions are based on statistics and probabilities, which means it is essential to make advance preparations before every hurricane season, even when the risk forecast for the country is low.

Every year Cuba puts into practice its internationally renowned system of prevention and preparedness, run by the civil defence service, to mitigate the impact of the frequent hurricanes that tear through the island and other extreme events such as droughts and floods, and thus reduce the loss of human lives to a minimum.

In spite of this, material damages tend to be heavy. In 2008, three hurricanes struck the island and cost the nation ten billion dollars, according to official figures.

On Oct. 25, 2012, Hurricane Sandy pounded Santiago de Cuba and two other eastern provinces with particular fury, causing 11 fatalities and serious economic damage.

The consensus among scientists is that hurricanes may be more destructive in future because of the effects of climate change. They recommend a strategy aimed at reducing vulnerability to natural disasters and at educating the public to increase risk awareness.

Sandy was the 18th tropical storm in the 2012 season, and the 10th to reach hurricane force. It buffeted Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Cuba, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the United States and Canada, leaving in its wake billions of dollars worth of damage and nearly 200 dead.

Cyclones this season will be named in the following order: Andrea, Barry, Chantal, Dorian, Erin, Fernand, Gabrielle, Humberto, Ingrid, Jerry, Karen, Lorenzo, Melissa, Nestor, Olga, Pablo, Rebekah, Sebastien, Tanya, Van and Wendy.

Twenty-five-year-old Razia is one of 2,500 survivors of the factory collapse in Bangladesh. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

By AJ Correspondents
DOHA, May 23 2013 (Al Jazeera)

Those responsible for the Bangladesh building collapse that killed more than 1,000 garment workers should be given life in prison, a government-appointed committee has said.

The investigating committee, appointed by Bangladesh’s interior ministry, recommended life in prison for the owner of the five factories based in the building on the outskirts of Dhaka.

The Apr. 24 collapse of the Rana Plaza building, the deadliest garment industry accident in history, highlighted the hazardous working conditions in Bangladesh’s 20 billion dollar garment industry and the lack of safety for millions of workers, who earn as little as 38 dollars a month.

The committee found that the ground on which the Rana Plaza was built was unfit for a multi-storey building and the construction itself was “extremely poor quality”.

“A portion of the building was constructed on land which had been a body of water before and was filled with rubbish.” Khandaker Mainuddin Ahmed, the committee head, told the Association Press news agency on Thursday.

Ahmed said Sohel Rana, owner of Rana Plaza was “the main culprit, and because of him 1,127 people have died.”

The report found that Rana ignored construction codes by converting the originally designed six-storey building meant for a shopping mall and commercial space into an eight-storey factory complex where over 3,000 labourers toiled.

Khandaker said Rana, and the factory owners, four of whom have been arrested, forced employees to go to work on Apr. 24 despite cracks which appeared in the building the day before.

“They threatened the workers that they would be fired and that their salaries would be cut if they refused to go to work.”

The committee also said the owners used generators in upper floors, defying building regulations. Combined with other industrial machinery the weight of the generators triggered the collapse.

New safety reforms

A U.S. delegation is to arrive on Sunday led by Wendy Sherman, the State Department’s under secretary for political affairs. They will meet officials from the Bangladeshi government.

“They’ll talk about labour law reforms,” U.S, ambassador Dan Mozena said.

“They’ll talk about fire safety standards, a minimum standard for every factory, and they’ll talk about minimum structural soundness standards.”

If the proposals are accepted, “it will become the largest ‘better work’ programme in history,” Mozena said.

The Bangladeshi government has already pledged to tighten factory safety inspections and make it easier for workers to form unions and set up a panel to raise wages for the three million garment workers.

Mozena said there were still “some outstanding issues” to be addressed, without elaborating.

Poor wages and repeated fatal accidents have led to a string of protests in the main garment-manufacturing hubs, halting shipments and forcing some retailers to divert orders to other countries.

More than 2,500 people were rescued after the disaster and the committee has urged the government to provide them with free medical treatment.

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.