China, Pakistan Brace for More Rain After Landslide, Flooding
Aug. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Nick Robins, head of the Climate Change Centre of Excellence at HSBC Holdings Plc, discusses the prospects for a global agreement on tackling climate change when delegates meet in December in Cancun, Mexico. He talks with Linzie Janis on Bloomberg Television's "Start Up." (Source: Bloomberg)
China and Pakistan prepared for more rain as Premier Wen Jiabao called for “all-out” efforts to rescue survivors from a landslide and as Pakistan battled the deadliest floods in more than eight decades. Drought and fires scorched Russia.
Flooding that started in Pakistan on July 22 has affected 12 million people and killed more than 1,500, according to the Edhi Foundation, the nation’s biggest rescue service, while crops from cotton to rice and sugarcane have been damaged.
Heavy rains in China’s western province of Gansu triggered a landslide late on Aug. 7 that killed at least 127 residents and left 1,300 missing. Wildfires in Russia have scorched an area three times the size of Luxembourg and 52 people have died amid the worst drought in 50 years.
“Weather patterns are becoming more extreme,” said Greg Smith, founder of Global Commodities Ltd. with A$200 million ($184 million) under management. “You would expect these events to be rarer -- they tend to be clustering more often,” he said from Adelaide, Australia today.
More downpours are forecast for today and tomorrow in the southern portion of Gansu where the landslides occurred, said the China Meteorological Administration. Flooding caused by heavy rain has killed more than 1,450 people nationwide this year as of Aug. 6, the most in more than a decade, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
In addition to Gansu, heavy rains are forecast today for the Chinese provinces of Shaanxi, Heilongjiang, Shanxi, Qinghai, Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong, and Hainan, the bureau said.
Indus Flooding
Flooding in northeastern China’s Jilin province has killed 85 people and left 66 missing in the past two months, the official Xinhua News agency reported.
In Pakistan, “urban flooding in Karachi is possible and further heavy rain may aggravate Indus river flooding in Sindh,” the weather office said on its website yesterday. Heavy downpours may spur flash inundations in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and parts of Punjab.
Floods have caused 200 billion rupees ($2.33 billion) of losses in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the worst affected of four provinces, Riaz Arshad, president of the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce & Industry, said by telephone from Peshawar today. The death toll may climb to 2,000 as many bodies haven’t been found, said Abdul Sattar Edhi, founder of the Edhi Foundation.
Elsewhere in Asia, flooding in North Korea swept away crops, houses and damaged power equipment, piling on hardship for a country that already needs aid to feed its 24 million people. More than 500 people are missing and 145 dead after flash floods struck the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir in India, Press Trust of India said yesterday.
Extreme Events
Climate change should be viewed as “threat multiplier,” Nick Robins, head of the Climate Change Centre of Excellence at HSBC Holdings Plc, said in a Bloomberg Television interview in London. “It increases the likelihood of certain types of extreme events.”
In Russia, record temperatures are feeding the fires, many in drained peat bogs that once produced 50 million metric tons of fuel a year and are now mostly abandoned because of a lack of demand. Temperatures of at least 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit) will plague central Russia through Aug. 13, according to the state Hydrometeorological Center.
Grain prices jumped last week after Russia banned exports as drought cut production. Wheat climbed to a 23-month high on Aug. 6 and has advanced 72 percent in the past two months. Corn rallied to a 13-month high on Aug. 5.
To contact the reporter on this story: Madelene Pearson in Mumbai on mpearson1@bloomberg.net
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