At least 36 people lost their lives to wildfires that engulfed Maui over the past couple of days. Fueled by the strong winds of distant Hurricane Dora, the fires have razed hundreds of structures in the historic town of Lahaina. A mass evacuation of people north of the town is in progress.
At least 60 people have lost their lives and 37 others remain missing in eastern China due to widespread floods caused by heavy rains over the past 10 days. The missing people include 51 in Beijing, 28 in Hebei, 15 in Jilin, and 3 in Fujian.
Tropical Cyclone “Khanun” formed on July 27, 2023, as the 7th named storm of the 2023 Pacific typhoon season. The system is already blamed for the death of 6 people in southern Japan and Taiwan. Kahun is expected to make landfall over the southern coast of South Korea around 00:00 UTC on August 10.
At least three people have died in Slovenia due to severe flooding after more than a month’s worth of rain fell in just 10 hours on August 4, 2023. The catastrophic event caused evacuations, cut off roads, flooded buildings, and prompted the prime minister to describe the situation as ‘catastrophic.’ The floods could be the biggest since Slovenia’s independence in 1991.
A deep earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.2 hit Santiago del Estero, Argentina at 07:20 UTC on August 5, 2023. The agency is reporting a depth of 597 km (370 miles). EMSC is reporting the same magnitude and depth.
A large landslide triggered by heavy rainfall swept away several structures on the Kedarnath Yatra route in Uttarakhand’s Rudraprayag district on August 4, 2023, leaving at least 3 people dead and 19 others missing.
The remnants of Typhoon “Doksuri” battered northern China from July 29 to August 1, 2023, unloading an entire year’s worth of rainfall and triggering devastating floods. The worst affected were Beijing and Hebei’s Zhuozhou where more than 1.2 million people were evacuated. At least 30 people have lost their lives and more than 30 remain missing.
An intense earthquake swarm that began around the end of 2019 in the northeastern Noto Peninsula, Japan, has been tied to fluids released by ancient, or possibly unknown modern, magmatic activity. This finding, published in JGR Solid Earth, challenges previous assumptions that such seismic activity could not occur in areas devoid of volcanic activity for over 10 million years.
A major rock slope collapse occurred near the village of Bisisthal in Switzerland on July 30, 2023. The collapse, which occurred in the Gwalpeten area, consisted of two phases totaling 450 000 m3 (15.8 million ft3) of rock, in a location that had been under scrutiny due to known instability.
A rare tornado hit the town of Ilirska Bistrica, Slovenia at around 20:00 UTC on August 1, 2023, resulting in substantial damage. Luckily, there were no injuries reported. This is the first confirmed tornado to hit Slovenia since August 20, 2014.
