DISASTER Diary – 22 May 2013

Extreme Rain Events affect hundreds of thousands, destroy thousands of homes in South China’s Guangdong Province

Flooding triggered by extreme rain events have destroyed thousands of homes, affecting about 500, 000 people, and forcing the authorities to evacuate tens of thousands.

Torrential rains, the second round to pound the province this month, are expected to continue through Friday. The events have left dozens of people dead or missing since early May.

-oOo-

Millions of Italians too poor to heat their homes

14 percent of the population, 8.6 million Italians,  are completely destitute, twice as many as two years ago, according to the national statistics institute ISTAT’s Annual Report 2013 – The state of the Nation.

• 16.6 percent of the population cannot afford protein-based meals, for example meat, every two days, up from 6.7 percent in 2010.
• More than 20 percent of the population cannot afford to heat their homes.
• A quarter of Italy’s 61 million population are living in families that meet three of more of ISTAT’s nine poverty indicators.
• Italy’s youth jobless rate has climbed to about 40 percent, the highest in Europe.
• Nearly 24 percent of young Italians are neither receiving education nor in the job market, also the highest level in Europe.  In southern Italy, a third of the youth aged 15-29 fell into this group.
• Italians’ purchasing power plunged by 4.8 percent in 2012.

-oOo-

DISASTER CALENDAR – May 22, 2013 — 
SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,025 Days Left 

Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016.

• SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,025 Days Left to ‘Worst Day’ in the brief Human  History
• The countdown began on May 15, 2011 …

GLOBAL WARNINGS

• WARNING: Human impact 2.85 x Earth’s diminishing carrying capacity
• WARNING: RAPID PLANETARY DECLINE IN PROGRESS!
• Europe: The First Phase of Collapse Has Started 
• United States: The First Phase of Collapse Has Begun

Global Disasters: Links, Forecasts and Background

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Back to the Primordial Future
• The Fate of Energy Dinosaurs
• Mass Die-offs