Three killed, 36,000 evacuated in Malaysia's severe flooding: Reports

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Three people have died, and 36,000 evacuated in Malaysia from the states that were worst affected by the recent floods, The Star newspaper reported on Friday, citing the country's Fire and Rescue Department.

Heavy rains have led the flooding to begin in the southern state of Johor on Wednesday. The next day, the flooding spread to some neighboring areas.

Fire and Rescue Department Deputy Director-General, Edwin Galan Teruki, said that Johor remains the worst-hit state, followed by Pahang (1,844), Negri Sembilan (1,061), Melaka (99) and Sarawak (43), as cited by the newspaper.

Three deaths had been reported so far, according to Teruki, all in Johor, the report said.

In December 2022, the Malaysian National Disaster Management Agency said that severe floods had killed at least five people and forced more than 65,000 to leave their homes.

As glacier lake formations increase, so do flash floods: Study

Melting ice caps that overlap with glaciers above the water recharge limit results in what is known as a glacier lake. A new study warned of the dangers of these formations.

According to the new study, the melting glaciers put the lives of people in India, Pakistan, Peru, and China, where there is an abundance of glaciar lakes, at risk of flash floods. This risk increases as glaciers retreat and prompt the formation of glacier lakes that could break up and spread for more than 120 kilometers from the original site.

The research revealed that, contrary to popular belief, the places most at risk do not have the largest, most numerous, or fastest-growing glacial lakes. Rather, the amount of people in the region, as well as their capacity to deal with natural disasters, is crucial to their risk.

According to the findings, 15 million people live within 50 kilometers of glacier lakes. High-altitude Asia, from Kyrgyzstan to China, is particularly vulnerable to floods, with an estimated 9.3 million people in danger. In India and Pakistan alone, there are around five million people at risk.

From bad to worse: Guterres

It is worth noting that back in September, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that "Floods, droughts, heatwaves, extreme storms and wildfires are going from bad to worse, breaking records with alarming frequency."

Guterres considered that "There is nothing natural about the new scale of these disasters. They are the price of humanity's fossil fuel addiction."

The UN's United in Science report underscores how, nearly three years since Covid-19 handed governments a unique opportunity to reassess how to power their economies, countries are continuing ahead with pollution.

The report found that after an unprecedented 5.4% fall in emissions in 2020 due to lockdowns and travel restrictions, preliminary data from January-May this year shows global CO2 emissions are 1.2% higher than before Covid-19.