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2017 Sierra Leone Mudslides
On the morning of August 14, 2017, significant mudflow events occurred in and around the capital city of Freetown in Sierra Leone. Following three days of torrential rainfall, mass wasting of mud and debris damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings in the city, killing 1,141 people and leaving more than 3,000 homeless. Causal factors for the mudslides include the region's particular topography and climate – with Freetown's elevation close to sea level and its greater position within a tropical monsoon climate. Those factors were assisted by the generally poor state of the region's infrastructure and loss of protective natural drainage systems from periods of deforestation. Background The potential for deadly flooding in Sierra Leone was exacerbated by a combination of factors. Freetown, which sits at the tip of a peninsula, was in 2015 occupied by approximately 1million people. Freetown's topography alternates between thickly wooded and partially deforested mountains. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mass Wasting
Mass wasting, also known as mass movement, is a general term for the movement of rock or soil down slopes under the force of gravity. It differs from other processes of erosion in that the debris transported by mass wasting is not entrained in a moving medium, such as water, wind, or ice. Types of mass wasting include creep, solifluction, rockfalls, debris flows, and landslides, each with its own characteristic features, and taking place over timescales from seconds to hundreds of years. Mass wasting occurs on both terrestrial and submarine slopes, and has been observed on Earth, Mars, Venus, Jupiter's moons Io, and on many other bodies in the Solar System. Subsidence is sometimes regarded as a form of mass wasting. A distinction is then made between mass wasting by subsidence, which involves little horizontal movement, and mass wasting by slope movement. Rapid mass wasting events, such as landslides, can be deadly and destructive. More gradual mass wasting, such as soil cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slope Stability
Slope stability analysis is a static or dynamic, analytical or empirical method to evaluate the stability of earth and rock-fill dams, embankments, excavated slopes, and natural slopes in soil and rock. Slope stability refers to the condition of inclined soil or rock slopes to withstand or undergo movement. The stability condition of slopes is a subject of study and research in soil mechanics, geotechnical engineering and engineering geology. Analyses are generally aimed at understanding the causes of an occurred slope failure, or the factors that can potentially trigger a slope movement, resulting in a landslide, as well as at preventing the initiation of such movement, slowing it down or arresting it through mitigation countermeasures. The stability of a slope is essentially controlled by the ratio between the available shear strength and the acting shear stress, which can be expressed in terms of a safety factor if these quantities are integrated over a potential (or actual) s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mass Grave
A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact definition is not unanimously agreed upon. Mass graves are usually created after many people die or are killed, and there is a desire to bury the corpses quickly for sanitation concerns. Although mass graves can be used during major conflicts such as war and crime, in modern times they may be used after a famine, epidemic, or natural disaster. In disasters, mass graves are used for infection and disease control. In such cases, there is often a breakdown of the social infrastructure that would enable proper identification and disposal of individual bodies. History Mass or communal burial was a common practice before the development of a dependable crematory chamber by Ludovico Brunetti in 1873. In ancient Rome waste and dead bodies of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Nations Office On Drugs And Crime
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC; French: ''Office des Nations unies contre la drogue et le crime'') is a United Nations office that was established in 1997 as the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention by combining the United Nations International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) and the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division in the United Nations Office at Vienna and was renamed the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2002. The agency's focus is the trafficking in and abuse of illicit drugs, crime prevention and criminal justice, international terrorism, and political corruption. It is a member of the United Nations Development Group. In 2016–2017 it had an estimated biannual budget of US$700 million. History The United Nations International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) and the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division in the United Nations Office at Vienna were merged to form the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention. This ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ACAPS
ACAPS is a non-profit, non-governmental project that provides international, independent humanitarian analysis. Founded in 2009, ACAPS provides daily monitoring and analysis of the situations in 150 countries, to support humanitarian aid workers."Expect more war, hunger, Islamist violence in 2018 -Geneva think-tank" November 30, 2017, / , retrieved M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sierra Leone Red Cross Society
Sierra Leone Red Cross Society (SLRCS) was established in 1962 by an act of the Parliament of Sierra Leone and is a national society. It has its headquarters in Freetown. The SLRCS is to render medical and humanitarian assistance to the Armed Forces and citizens of Sierra Leone during times of conflict, disasters or humanitarian crisis. Each year on May 8, the SLRCS joins the rest of the world in celebrating the World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day. History The SLRCS played a major part in containing and managing the Ebola crisis/outbreak and in recovery operations from 2014 to 2016. In 2012, the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society (SLRCS) Act was passed. Section 5, Subsection 2 of the Act states, "The government shall provide subvention to the Society.” Issue was raised in 2018 by the Secretary General, Kpawuru Sandy, as subventions had not been paid since the Act's enactment on December 3, 2012. “We are calling on the government of Sierra Leone to pay subventions to the Red Cros ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaningo
The Eastern Province ( sw, Mashariki) of Kenya was one of 8 Provinces of Kenya. Its northern boundary ran along with that of Ethiopia; the North Eastern Province and Coast Province lay to the east and south; and the remainder of Kenya's provinces, including Central Province, ran along its western border. The provincial capital was Embu. Overview On 16 July 2009, the province was sub-divided into 3 Sub-Provinces namely lower eastern with Machakos as headquarters, central eastern with Meru as headquarters, and upper eastern with Marsabit as headquarters; however those changes never took effect due to the political wrangles in the Kenyan coalition government at the time. The sub-division of provinces were carried out in all seven Provinces of Kenya, excluding Nairobi. As of March 2013 after the Kenyan general election, 2013, the Eastern Province was subdivided into 8 counties namely: The province was principally inhabited by the Meru, Kamba and Embu and several pastoralist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regent, Sierra Leone
Regent is a mountainous town in the Western Area Rural District of Sierra Leone. Regent lies approximately six miles east of Freetown, and close to the village of Gloucester. The population of Regent is approximately 22,000 people and the community is religiously very diverse. Regent is the hometown of Sierra Leonean economist and politician, Solomon Athanasius James Pratt. History Regent was founded in 1812 to provide accommodation for Liberated Africans, who had been brought to Freetown by the British Royal Navy West Africa Squadron. The descendants of these liberated Africans, (along with the Jamaican Maroons and Nova Scotians) are the Creole people. Originally called Hogbrook, Regent was named in honour of the George IV of the United Kingdom, at the time Prince Regent of England. St Charles Church The St Charles’ Church was built in 1816 as part of the Parish Plan. This stone church was financed by the colonial government, and from 1817 the Church Missionary Society ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sugar Loaf (Freetown)
:''Mountains with a similar name are listed at Sugarloaf_(mountain)'' Sugar Loaf is a forested mountain in the Western Area of Sierra Leone in west Africa. The capital city of Freetown is built around its lower slopes. Parts of the mountain are protected as the Western Area Forest Reserve. The 19th-century British missionary George Thompson (traveller), George Thompson documented his ascent of Sugar Loaf in his 1859 book ''The Palm Land; Or, West Africa, Illustrated''. On Monday 14 August, 2017 in the 2017 Sierra Leone mudslides a landslide triggered by heavy rains swept down one of its flanks and inundated a part of the urban area of Regent, Sierra Leone, Regent with mud with many deaths reported. References {{coord missing, Sierra Leone Mountains of Sierra Leone Western Area Geography of Freetown ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Direct Relief
Direct Relief (formerly known as Direct Relief International) is a nonprofit humanitarian organization that provides emergency medical assistance and disaster relief in the United States and internationally. The organization is headed by an independent board of directors and its president and CEO, Thomas Tighe. History In 1945, William Zimdin, an Estonian immigrant to the United States and businessman, began sending thousands of relief parcels to relatives, friends, and former employees in Europe to help with the aftermath of World War II. In 1948, Zimdin formalized his efforts with the establishment of the William Zimdin Foundation. Dezso Karczag, a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, assumed management of the foundation following Zimdin's death in 1951. Karczag changed the organization's name to Direct Relief Foundation in 1957. In the early 1960s, the foundation refined its mission to serve disadvantaged populations in medically underserved communities around the world. To assist w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Climate Prediction Center
The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) is a United States federal agency that is one of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, which are a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service. CPC is headquartered in College Park, Maryland. Its roots trace back to the climatological work of Thomas Jefferson, with the United States Army Signal Corp taking over responsibility of the climate program in the late 19th century. Once it became part of the United States Weather Bureau, it was known as the Weather Bureau Climate and Crop Services. From 1957 through 1966, the United States Weather Bureau's Office of Climatology, located in Washington, D.C., and then Suitland, Maryland, published the Mariners Weather Log publication. Late in the 20th century, it was known as the Climate Analysis Center for a time, before evolving into CPC in 1995. CPC issues climate forecasts valid for weeks and months in advance. History The roots of modern cli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Weather Service
The National Weather Service (NWS) is an Government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weather-related products to organizations and the public for the purposes of protection, safety, and general information. It is a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) branch of the United States Department of Commerce, Department of Commerce, and is headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, Silver Spring, Maryland, within the Washington metropolitan area. The agency was known as the United States Weather Bureau from 1890 until it adopted its current name in 1970. The NWS performs its primary task through a collection of national and regional centers, and 122 local List of National Weather Service Weather Forecast Offices, Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs). As the NWS is an agency of the U.S. federal government, most o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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