Category:

Disaster & Management

English judge blocks $6.6 billion Brazil lawsuit against BHP over burst dam

The case is the latest battle to establish whether multinationals can be held liable for the conduct of subsidiaries abroad.
The collapse of the Fundao dam, which is owned by the Samarco joint venture between BHP and Brazilian iron ore mining giant Vale VALE3.SA, killed 19 and sent a torrent of mining waste into communities, the Doce river, and the Atlantic Ocean, 650 kilometres (400 miles) away. It was Brazil’s worst environmental disaster.
The ruling comes about 18 months after the UK Supreme Court ruled that nearly 2,000 Zambian villagers could sue miner Vedanta in England for alleged pollution in Africa because substantial justice was not obtainable in Zambia.

read more

Super typhoon Goni slams into Philippines, 1 million evacuated

Manila’s main airport was ordered shut down for 24 hours from Sunday to Monday and airlines canceled dozens of international and domestic flights. The military and national police, along with the coast guard and firefighters, have been put on full alert.

About 1,000 Covid-19 patients were moved to hospitals and hotels from tent quarantine and treatment centers in the capital and the northern province of Bulacan, Jalad said. More emergency shelters would be opened than usual to avoid congestion that can rapidly spark infections.

read more

Strong earthquake kills 19 people in Turkey and Greek islands

People ran onto streets in panic in the Turkish city of Izmir, witnesses said, after the quake struck with a magnitude of up to 7.0. Neighbourhoods were deluged with surging seawater which swept debris inland and left fish stranded as it receded.Ismail Yetiskin, mayor of Izmir’s Seferihisar, said sea levels rose as a result of the quake. “There seems to be a small tsunami,” he told broadcaster NTV.

Footage on social media showed debris including refrigerators, chairs and tables floating through streets on the deluge. TRT Haber showed cars in Izmir’s Seferihisar district had been dragged by the water and piled on top of each other.

read more

Swiss Re joins global coalition to better predict & prevent outbreak and pandemics, to harness data and analytics

The Trinity Challenge aims to develop ideas and tools for tackling the three stages of infectious disease emergencies – identification, response and recovery.
By becoming a member of The Trinity Challenge, Swiss Re is joining leaders across the academic, non-profit and private sectors including Google, Microsoft and Facebook, GlaxoSmithKline, McKinsey & Company, the Gates Foundation, the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London.

read more

Hurricane Delta to cost insurers between $2bn – $3.5bn:RMS 

“The overlapping nature of Delta and Laura will create a complicated claims management and loss attribution process for the industry. Using an innovative combination of high-resolution aerial imagery and machine-learning techniques, the modeling teams at RMS assessed the competing impacts of Hurricane Laura on Hurricane Delta losses. We determined that more than half of the impacted postal codes were also impacted by Laura, representing more than 90% of loss in this event. While Delta caused higher than expected damage to many structures due to pre-existing damage from Laura, reduced overall exposure-at-risk in the overlapping region after Laura means losses attributed to Delta will end up being lower than if Laura had never happened,” said Jeff Waters, senior product manager, RMS North Atlantic Hurricane Models. 

read more