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Thailand
Epic Rains Flood Hat Yai City
Pounding rain has driven deadly floods throughout Southeast Asia, with Thailand’s Hat Yai City receiving rainfall described as the worst in 300 years. Hat Yai City took the brunt of the ongoing rains affecting countries across the region, receiving 13.2 inches (335 mm) of rain in a single day. Across Thailand, at least 33 people have been killed, while the death toll in Vietnam from this year’s monsoon season has reached 98, Indonesia has lost 19, and Malaysia has seen 19,000 people forced from their homes. Meteorologists say this year’s monsoon season has been strengthened by the La Niña climate phenomenon, with strong trade winds pushing warm water westward across the Pacific. Most recently, a low pressure system in the Andaman Sea merged with a northeast monsoon, resulting in the rain system focused on southern Thailand which has brought such devastating effects.
This map depicts flood depth readings in Thailand’s Hat Yai City, where flood waters have reached as deep as feet (4 m) in places following a period of historic rainfall. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: BBC
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China
High Rise Inferno Kills 13
A massive fire swept through multiple high rise residential towers at Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court estate in Tai Po on Wednesday, killing at least 13 people, including a firefighter, and injuring many more. The blaze, which began around mid-afternoon, spread rapidly along bamboo scaffolding and construction netting and intensified to the city’s highest No. 5 alarm level. It sent thick smoke billowing from the 31 story blocks and trapped residents, many of them elderly, while hundreds of firefighters and emergency vehicles struggled to contain the extreme heat. About 700 residents were evacuated to temporary shelters as families waited desperately for news, while some reporting loved ones still missing. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
This map depicts the location and description of the fire at Wang Fuk Court housing complex in Hong Kong. Click on the map to learn more.
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Indonesia
Jakarta Now World’s Largest City
A new United Nations report finds that Jakarta, Indonesia, is now the world’s most populous city, showing how fast huge “megacities” are reshaping where people live. Jakarta’s population has been recounted at nearly 42 million people after the UN adopted a new method that treats the capital and its dense suburbs (part of a city’s metropolitan area) as one “contiguous” city, pushing it past Dhaka and Tokyo in the rankings. This comes as the Indonesian government builds a new capital, Nusantara, on the island of Borneo to escape Jakarta’s flooding, pollution, and overcrowding. Overall, the report lists 33 megacities with over 10 million inhabitants today, up from just eight in 1975, and 19 of the top 33 are in Asia. The new definition for a city is a “contiguous agglomeration” of one-kilometre-square grid cells with a density of at least 1,500 inhabitants per square kilometre and a total population of at least 50,000. The UN estimates that about 45% of the planet’s 8.2 billion people now live in cities, double the share in 1950, and that by 2050 there could be more than 15,000 cities meeting the new definition worldwide, most of them relatively small but growing quickly.
This map depicts global megacities with metropolitan areas of 10 million inhabitants or more. Cities projected to reach mega status by 2050 are indicated in pink. Click on the map to learn more.
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Q: What European city holds the title of the world’s northernmost city, and is one of the best places to see the northern lights?
A: Tromsø, Norway
The Arctic capital of Tromsø is located on a small island 217 miles (350 km) north of the Arctic Circle, and it is the largest city in northern Norway. The city is home to the northernmost university, which houses the northernmost botanical garden and planetarium. The area has been inhabited since the end of the last ice age, with discovered artifacts and building remains estimated to be between 9,000 and 11,000 years old. The area’s rich Norse and Sámi (Indigenous people inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia) heritage is well documented. This was the frontier between Norse and Sámi settlements, with areas north of this populated by the Sámi. The Northern lights observatory was founded on the island in 1927.
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Q: What are the two continents with no megacities, urban areas with over 10 million people?
Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in tomorrow’s DailyGeo.
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