The death toll from Tropical Storm Harvey is expected to rise as Houston and a wide swath of Texas face record rains and catastrophic flooding.

With deadly power, Tropical Storm Harvey has inundated Houston and southeastern Texas, bringing up to 2 feet of rain in 24 hours in the nation’s fourth largest city and triggering flooding that the National Weather Service called “catastrophic” and “unprecedented.”

At least five people were reported to have died, and authorities expect the death toll to rise. More than a dozen injuries have been blamed on the storm, which made landfall on Friday night as a Category 4 hurricane, the most powerful to hit the United States in a decade. Its winds have slowed to tropical-storm force.

Meanwhile, 911 operators fielded 56,000 calls in less than 24 hours, pleas for help went out over social media, thousands of rescues took place, and some residents made desperate treks across Houston’s sprawling freeways. The White House says President Trump will travel to Texas on Tuesday.

With record floodwaters devastating much of southeast Texas, more than 450,000 people are likely to seek federal aid in recovering from Harvey, the storm that has battered the Gulf Coast for days, Brock Long, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said on Monday. The agency has estimated that about 30,000 people will seek emergency shelter, and that federal aid will be needed for years.

The Houston region now looks like an inland sea dotted by islands, with floodwaters inundating roads, vehicles, and even bridges and buildings. Thousands of people have been rescued from flooded homes and cars and many more are stuck in homes that remained above water but are cut off.

More than 30 inches of rain has fallen on parts of the Houston area since Thursday, the National Weather Service reported on Monday, causing catastrophic flooding that officials have called the worst in the state’s history. Torrential rains will continue through Friday, with an additional 15 to 25 inches pummeling the region, the Weather Service predicted.

Harvey turned back out to sea on Monday morning, with the centre of the storm reaching the Gulf of Mexico between Corpus Christi and Houston, the National Hurricane Centre reported. It was expected to move slowly to the southeast on Monday, before churning to the northeast, along the Gulf coast.

Flooding from Tropical Storm Harvey is overburdening resources in the US as authorities in and around Houston in Texas scramble to save those trapped by the high waters.

Hopes for an immediate respite from Harvey’s wrath seem unlikely as the National Weather Service calls the flooding “unprecedented” and warns things may become more dire if a record-breaking 50 inches of rain falls on parts of Texas in coming days.

The rainfall threatens to exacerbate an already dangerous situation, as Harvey’s rains have left many east Texas rivers and bayous swollen to their banks or beyond.

“The breadth and intensity of this rainfall are beyond anything experienced before,” the weather service said. “Catastrophic flooding is now underway and expected to continue for days.

The storm killed two people in Texas, authorities said, and the death toll will likely rise. More than 1,000 people were rescued overnight, and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner warned that some 911 calls are going unanswered as operators “give preference to life-threatening calls.”

Here are the latest developments:

• A woman who drove her vehicle into high water in Houston was killed, and fire killed a man in Rockport.
• Several states and the US military are sending emergency workers and equipment to Texas. In Harris County, though, authorities are having issues mobilising those resources. “We’ve requested boats, all the things that would normally happen in a well-planned response to an event like this, but they can’t get here,” Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said.
• Dallas announced its plans to open a “mega-shelter” capable of accommodating 5,000 evacuees at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. County officials, charitable groups and local hospitals are working to open the shelter by Tuesday morning.
• While Turner warned the rain could exacerbate flooding for “four to five days,” Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Brock Long said he expects his agency “is going to be there for years.”
• The Houston Independent School District has canceled school for the week.
• Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental and William P. Hobby airports are closed until further notice, and Corpus Christi International is closed for at least 24 hours, officials said. Jack Brooks Regional Airport in Beaumont, Ellington Airport in Houston, Mustang Beach Airport in Port Aransas and McCampbell-Porter Airport in Aransas Pass are also temporarily closed, the Federal Aviation Administration says.
• Ben Taub Hospital, which houses a Level I trauma center, is being evacuated after flooding in the basement “disrupted the power source,” Emmet said.
• 316,000 customers have lost electricity, Gov. Greg Abbott said.
• The Red Cross is serving about 130,000 meals a day, the governor said.
• President Donald Trump will travel to Texas on Tuesday, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

Courtesy: CNN

Almost 41 million people have been affected by flooding and landslides in India, Bangladesh and Nepal and there is possibility the situation could deteriorate further as rains continue in some flood-affected areas, a UN agency said.

United Nations humanitarian agencies are working with the Government and partners in Nepal to bring in clean water, food, shelter and medical aid for some of the 41 million people affected by flooding and landslides in Bangladesh, India and Nepal.

Nearly a thousand people have been killed, and tens of thousands of homes, schools and hospitals have been destroyed in Bangladesh, India and Nepal.

“There is the possibility that the situation could deteriorate further as rains continue in some flood-affected areas and flood waters move south,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said recently in an updated note.

The note said governments in all three countries are leading the response with support from in-country humanitarian agencies, national Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies, private sector and militaries. However, many areas remain inaccessible due to damage to roads, bridges, railways and airports.

In India, rescue operations are ongoing in many flood- affected areas, with those stranded being rescued by helicopter. More than 600 people have died and 32.1 million people have been affected with the floods, OCHA said.

Rescue operations are ongoing in many flood-affected areas, with those stranded being rescued by helicopter. Flood relief camps have been established for those displaced by the disaster where they are being provided with food and shelter.

The number of camps is increasing as the flood-affected area continues to expand. The government recently announced additional funding for relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and flood mitigation.

In addition to people suffering, Indian authorities also reported large parts of a famous wildlife reserve park destroyed, with endangered animals killed.

In Bangladesh, nearly 2,000 local medical teams have been deployed, even as one-third of the country is reportedly underwater. Aid workers are concerned about waterborne diseases, such as diarrhoea and malaria.

“Their most urgent concern is to accessing safe water and sanitation facilities,” OCHA said earlier this week, citing national authorities.

It also warned of dangers to women and children, who are at increased risk for abuse, violence and sexual harassment.

Pascal Mittermaier, Global Managing Director, Cities, The Nature Conservancy, underlines the need to plant more trees in order to protect vulnerable settlements. He stresses that, in rapidly heating cities, climate change is an environmental justice challenge

If you want evidence of climate change’s devastating effects, just look at the news over the last few weeks. Phoenix, Arizona got so hot planes couldn’t land. Iran set a new record temperature of 54°C. Perhaps most frightening, a devastating heatwave continues to grip much of Europe, killing at least five people so far and causing droughts, wildfires and transit shutdowns – Italians have dubbed the weather event “Lucifer.”

One can argue there’s nothing new or remarkable about summer heatwaves, of course. But what isnew and remarkable is their frequency and intensity, and they’ll likely get worse if we don’t take steps to curb climate change. Cities will be particularly hard hit, as the urban heat island effect – caused by sparse vegetation and heat-absorbing surfaces like asphalt – can result in temperatures as much as 12°C higher than in less-developed areas nearby. While the heat island effect will remain consistent as the climate changes, the additive challenges of higher temperatures and paved cities will make many neighborhoods less livable.

And for certain neighborhoods within cities, the situation is even worse. The urban heat islands are most prevalent in lower income neighborhoods, where residents are also less likely to have air conditioning or easy access to public cooling centers. In our fast-heating cities, climate change is threatening those who are already most vulnerable.

Urban planners and public health officials are grappling with the best way to approach this complicated issue. But there’s one solution we can implement now with a big impact: plant more trees. Trees and other vegetation naturally cool the air around them by shading surfaces and releasing water vapor. And while the effects are local – most of the improvement is within 100 metres – they can still be meaningful, reducing temperatures by up to 2°C.

The Nature Conservancy has carried out a study of 245 cities around the world that stand to benefit from tree-planting initiatives, assessing their efficiency and return on investment. Compared to other ways to cool outdoor air temperatures, such as white roofs, trees deliver similar benefits per dollar spent. Urban trees can also reduce fine particulate matter air pollution, a problem that contributes to 5 percent of all deaths worldwide each year.

Given that the most significant effects of trees are highly localised, we found that densely populated megacities in Pakistan, India, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia would benefit most. Yet this also means that within cities there are will be individual neighborhoods that could benefit, depending on their density and existing level of vegetation. This is an advantage both for efficiency and from a social equity standpoint, as planting can be targeted directly to those neighborhoods with greatest need.

Trees also offer a huge range of other benefits. In addition to the cooling and air quality benefits, trees provide habitat for wildlife, reduce storm-water runoff, and sequester carbon from the atmosphere, which helps to mitigate climate change. There is also a growing body of research showing that exposure to trees and other vegetation has a positive effect on mental health, especially for children.

Trees are not a cure all, of course – it will take a comprehensive set of solutions to make our cities cooler and healthier, and it will take concerted action on the national and international level. Because our climate science indicates that heatwaves will only get worse: a new report from the European Commission predicts that if we don’t limit climate change, much of the world could regularly experience heat indices (a measure of the combined impacts and heat and humidity) as high as 55°C – significantly higher than those in the 2003 heatwave that killed 70,000 people across Europe.

Trees are only a small part of the complex solutions required to reduce the possibility of such heatwaves and the deaths that would surely accompany them. In order to keep the climate in safe boundaries, we’ll have to both decarbonize our economies and invest more in natural climate solutions – strategies such as avoiding forest loss, reforestation, investments in soil health and coastal ecosystem restoration that maximise nature’s carbon storage potential.

But local communities don’t have to wait to take action – when it comes to mitigating the effects of climate change for city residents, municipal leaders can lead the way. Planting trees is a strategy that can be implemented now, and one that is particularly beneficial for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged urban populations. If we want cooler, safer communities, now is the time to plant them.