Suspected monkeypox cases
LONDON - Scientists say that climate change was likely to have made the rains that unleashed catastrophic flooding across Bangladesh worse.
While South Asia’s monsoon rains follow natural atmospheric patterns, the rains will become more erratic and torrential as global temperatures continue to climb, scientists say.
It would take months to determine exactly how much of a role climate change played in last week’s heavy rains.
But scientists note that warmer air can hold more water vapour before rain clouds eventually burst, meaning more rain eventually pours down.
“The strong monsoon winds in the Bay of Bengal can carry a lot more moisture,” said Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.
“The large amount of rainfall that we see now might be a climate change impact.”
The South Asia monsoon season, from June to September, is governed by several, overlapping patterns in the ocean and atmosphere, including the El Nino-La Nina weather cycle and the Indian Ocean Dipole. Currently, those systems are driving strong, southwesterly winds over the Bay of Bengal.
But the monsoon patterns have shifted in recent decades, as the average temperature for Bangladesh has risen at least 0.5 degrees Celsius since 1976.
“Instead of having moderate rains spread out through the monsoon season, we have long dry periods intermittently with short spells of heavy rains,” Ms Koll said.
“When it rains, it dumps all that moisture in a few hours to a few days.”
On Tuesday, Bangladeshi troops were navigating dinghys through brackish floodwaters to rescue those in need or deliver food and water to some of the 9.5 million people marooned. Officials say at least 69 people have died in the disaster.
Last week’s heavy rains, which caused Bangladesh’s rivers to breach their banks, followed less than a month after the neighboring Indian state of Assam was hit by similar raintriggered flooding, which killed at least 25 people there.
Bangladesh is considered one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, with a 2015 analysis by the World Bank Institute estimating about 3.5 million Bangladeshis are at risk of river flooding every year.
SEOUL - South Korea on Wednesday said the first two suspected cases of monkeypox virus have been reported in the country, adding that diagnostic tests were being conducted and health authorities will hold a briefing once the tests were completed.
One of the people with suspected monkeypox, a foreign national who reportedly showed potential symptoms since Sunday, entered the country on Monday and is currently under treatment in an isolation bed at a hospital in the city of Busan, some 300 km (186 miles) southeast of the capital Seoul. The other, a Korean citizen who showed symptoms while entering the country from Germany on Tuesday afternoon, has been admitted to Incheon Medical Centre for treatment.
“Diagnostic tests and epidemiological investigations on the monkeypox are being conducted and the health authority will swiftly hold a briefing to announce measures and response plans once the results are out,” the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said in a statement.