Roughly 70% pf the entire population of razed Gaza;live in tents. Their own homes having been destroyed by Israeli airpower and atillery.70% of those tents were flooded by heavy rains. 162,00 of the 270,00 tents in use are now unusable. This is not a camping holiday but one can remember how it is with heavy rain and your bedding is soaked through, your clothes, all your possessions. No rest. No comfort. There can be no comfort for the people of Gaza, it has been decided by the Israeli intellectuals of punishment and discomfort for the “people of the jungle”.
Kyiv capital city of Ukraine has experienced water supply shortages. According to Kyivvodokanal, the capital’s water utility, Russian attacks left its main water supply facilities without electricity, temporarily interrupting water service across the city on November 3rd. The utility warned that even after electricity is restored, additional time will be needed to restart equipment, refill water networks and stabilize pressure. Residents were advised to use the city’s public drinking-water wells while regular service remains unavailable.
Flooding along the Euphrates river in Syria this year displaced several thousand people. The uncivil war if the country ended in 2024 with millions of its people escaping as refugees to Turkey. Man-made climate change however has intensified on both sides of the border. The extreme and erratic weather which in addition to the war had caused the exodus, has seen a prolonged drought this year followed by intense flooding.
Peru has declared a two month “El Nino” Emergency covering to close on 75% 0f the country The emergency includes all 38 districts of Lambayeque, on the northern coast and imposed in advance of a visit by the Pope which would take in Chiclayo which is expected to be affected by flooding. In Ecuador, El Niño rains left one dead and more than 2,000 affected on Santa Cruz island in the Galápagos last week The Emergency was declared by President Fujimori, the Oligarch choice and it is to be hoped the Emergency is not used for repressive purposes as by her father a former President imprisoned for human rights abuses. Nevertheless the security operation for the Pope will involve some 2,500 police, 1,000 soldiers far more than those for flooding Civil Defence.
In England the prospect of floods has become matter of Never Waste A Good Crisis. Flood defences, requiring between £1 and 1.5 billion a year, have until recently been managed by a mix of public and private bodies, the private being both obligatory and part of a property portfolio. Now they are increasingly becoming financial assets which contractually guarantee revenues from structural dependencies and “survival rents”; value captured from a guaranteed cut of state subsidies, corporate compliance costs, and insurance mitigation savings, The self-interested FloodAction Coalition of insurance& financial capital and large scale landowners is pushing to make these assets or slices of them tradeable. (With thanks to Nic Beuret)