KERALA, INDIA – No one can comprehend the terror of a major flood until they have been personally affected by one. This is especially true of those who lose their homes, their possessions, and their loved ones to raging waters that cannot be contained. This writer has been at the sites of four floods over…
KERALA, INDIA – The southern state of Kerala on India’s west coast has been inundated by monsoon-generated floodwaters that have destroyed 40,000 crore hectares of crops, destroyed countless homes, commercial buildings, and displaced more than a million people. Although the flood waters are receding, much of Kerala is still under water. State Agriculture Minister Sunil…
KERALA, INDIA – India is experiencing monumental meteorological and geophysical problems that constantly threaten the potential of the country’s efforts to raise itself to a position of global leadership. As governmental agencies, private companies, and NGOs work consistently to improve education, healthcare, and alleviating poverty and disease, circumstances beyond the control of mankind take one…
VIENTIANE – At approximately 8:00 p.m. local time on 23 July, the Xepian-Xe Nam Noy dam on the Xe Pian River in Laos collapsed. Within minutes, eight Laotian villages were completely destroyed whilst others were inundated, making travel and escape impossible. Reports on the number dead, injured, or missing vary as time goes by. It…
HIROSHIMA – The death toll keeps rising by the in Hiroshima Prefecture and seven other prefectures in the south of Japan. More than two million people have been forced to evacuate after record rainfalls have inundated the area. The Japan Meteorological Agency reported that 14.3 inches of rain had fallen within a period of two…
SOUTH ASIA (May 23, 2018) – Pakistan and India are being afflicted with intensely hot weather that is affecting residents throughout both countries. Unfortunately, the term “hot weather” does not translate into every American English any easier than if we were reading it in Hindi. The subcontinent has been experiencing temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius….
GFA (Gospel for Asia) matches simple mosquito net distribution with awareness drive to further ‘life and death’ fight against malaria. WILLS POINT, Texas—Malaria may be a thing of the past in many places, but it remains a major public health threat in large parts of the world, prompting GFA (Gospel for Asia) to sound the…
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea – Prime Minister Peter O’Neill declared a state of emergency on 01 March after the remote highlands of Papua New Guinea were hit by a massive, 7.5 magnitude earthquake on 26 February. Aid workers from Australia, New Zealand, China, Israel, and other countries around the globe have been rushing to…
Gospel for Asia (GFA World) Special Report on the Open Defecation Sanitation Crisis Written By Karen Burton Mains For much of my adult life, it has been my privilege to hang out with the “renegades” of Christian missions, that relief-and-development crowd that rushes to help during natural disasters, struggles to alleviate the suffering and abasement…
CAPE TOWN (28 February 2018) – For the second time in a month, the feared Day Zero for the water supply for Cape Town has been moved back. In our previous article on the South African water crisis published on February 16, we reported that Day Zero – the day when Cape Town would no…
KATMANDU – At four minutes before noon on April 25, 2015, Nepal was hit by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake with its epicenter about 48 miles northwest of the capital city of Katmandu. It was the worst natural disaster to hit Nepal in more than 80 years and the deadliest day in the region’s recorded history….
Gospel for Asia shared prayer requests and an update from one of their field correspondents. One correspondent in India writes, “The villagers are running for help in other places where their relatives are staying. There is no proper communication. They are unable to get food, clean drinking water and are having sleepless nights because of the…
Photo by Gospel for Asia The death toll in Assam, India has reached 69 people due to flooding. Per FirstPost, “The death toll in the Assam floods climbed to 69 as four more deaths were reported on Tuesday, while nearly nine lakh [one hundred thousand is a lakh] people remained affected in 16 districts.” In…
Photo by SA 3.0 South Africa was hit by a bad drought. Per BBC, “In May, the Western Cape province declared a drought disaster after two reservoirs had completely dried up. It was said to have been the region’s worst drought in more than a century.” In the beginning of June though, a bad storm…
Photo by USAID Africa Bureau In Ethiopia, there has been a massive emergency for Ethiopia. They’re in a drought and many of their crops and cattle have been destroyed and killed. Millions of people will be affected by lack of food. Per BBC, “The UN’s World Food Programme said 7.8 million people affected by…
Photo by Punya On April 25, 2015, a massive earthquake hit Nepal, creating destruction to buildings around Nepal. This killed thousands of people nationwide. Per Fox News, “Nearly everything was lost on April 25, 2015, when a terrifying earthquake shook the Himalayan nation, killing more than 9,000 people and toppling nearly a million homes…
Photo by Sumon Mallick Not only did Cyclone Mora cause massive flooding in Bangladesh, it also caused mudslides which took the life of over 140 people. Rescuers are having difficulty getting to these areas because of the mud. Per The Hindu, “Rescuers struggled on Wednesday to reach villages hit by massive landslips that have…
Photo by Ziaul Hoque Cyclone Mora hit the coast of Bangladesh on May 30, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Per AccuWeather, “More than 500,000 people have been displaced by the former Cyclone Mora which brought heavy rain and damaging winds to western Myanmar and Bangladesh on Monday and Tuesday.” After landfall, at least six…
By Kok Leng Yeo from Singapore Last August, North Korea was flooded. This was due to Typhoon Lionrock hitting the country. Fox News reports, “Typhoon Lionrock, amplified by a low-pressure system in the region, created floods that submerged, severely damaged or destroyed 30,000 homes and displaced 70,000 people.” North Korea tried to get aid, only…
Photo by AusAID In early December, there was an earthquake that hit the Aceh Province in Indonesia. According to Fox News, “Maj. Gen. Tatang Sulaiman, chief of the army in Aceh province, said at least 97 died while four people were pulled from the rubble alive. Another four or five are known to be buried,…
Sri Lanka is facing their worst floods since 2003. In it, over 200 people have been killed. Per The Indian Express, “The death toll in Sri Lanka’s floods has climbed to 202 with 94 people still missing in the country’s worst torrential rains since 2003 that displaced nearly half a million people. The Disaster Management…
In June of 2016, the dry season in Indonesia, it would not stop raining. CNN explains, “June is usually relatively dry in the region, but the National Climatology, Meteorology and Geophysics Agency has issued a warning for potential rain for late June and early July in five provinces.” Not only did Indonesia have heavy flooding,…
LEEDS, Ala. – More than 900 wildfires torched about 200 acres in central Alabama, affecting homes and businesses and creating poor visibility on Interstate 20. The blazes produced plumes of smoke so thick they were visible on weather radar. Fed by a drought throughout the Southeast, the fires destroyed more than 100,000 acres in Alabama…
Residents of Southern California are still coping with the aftermath of this summer’s wildfire. The blaze led to the evacuation of 82,000 residents from 10,000 homes. More than 300 homes and businesses were destroyed in Los Angeles County, and an estimated 57 square miles of brush were consumed. As fires raged in the south, another…
Multiple faith-based humanitarian organizations are responding to the disaster in Haiti caused by Hurricane Matthew. Lutheran World Relief (LWR) has focused on long-term needs of the hurricane victims, helping 16,643 people and partnering with Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) to reach 10,000 people. NCA distributed hygiene kits with water purification tablets, soap, shampoo, toilet paper, toothpaste…
Sri Lanka’s heaviest rains in 25 years have caused massive mudslides resulting in about 63 confirmed dead and up to 200 missing families buried in 50 feet of mud. Officials estimate that 200,000 people have left Colombo, the nation’s low-lying capital, while 400,000 have fled to state-run relief camps. Deforestation meant to create more farmland…
Earthquake prone Japan had yet another earthquake May 16 when a 5.6 magnitude event shook the eastern region of Honshu, the nation’s main island. The epicenter was 60 miles northeast of Tokyo, and about 24 miles underground. Officials quickly stated that the earthquake would not cause a tsunami, which occurred in northeast Honshu in 2011….
Oil-rich Venezuela crisis continues to grow, with food and medicine shortages. Amidst cries of “we are hungry,” Venezuelans are increasingly robbing stores of food and medicine as panic grows across their country, which has 481 percent inflation. Coupled with a drought that inhibits the nation’s hydroelectric production, the communist government has also declared a two-day…
A 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck northern Afghanistan in early April near its border with Tajikistan in the sparsely populated Hindu Kush mountains. Aftershocks reached as far as Delhi, India. The quake caused one fatality in Pakistan. In October 2015, the same region had a 7.5-magnitude earthquake that claimed 300 lives. Since the recent incident, officials have…
The Pacific island nation of Fiji is recovering from two cyclones and major floods,all happening since late February 2016. Tropical Cyclone Winston, the strongest recorded cyclone ever in Fiji and the Southern Hemisphere, was a Category 5 tropical cyclone with estimated winds of 185 miles per hour. As the eye of Cyclone Winston crossed Fiji,…
An estimated 750,000 people felt “violent to severe” shaking as a series of three earthquakes struck near Kumamoto on the earthquake prone southernJapanese island of Kyushu, about 800 miles southwest of Tokyo. The earthquakes claimed at least 34 lives and injured more than 800 people. An estimated 180,000 people have sought shelter. The first earthquake…
A Hindu celebration meant to welcome in a new year in the southern Indian state of Kerala turned deadly in early April when a single firecracker fell into a pyrotechnic storage area and ignited the large inventory there. The resulting explosion and fire killed an estimated 107 persons, burned hundreds more and collapsed part of…
Since an earthquake and strong aftershock hit Nepal April and May of 2015, there have been significant relief efforts to help with the reconstruction. Most of the relief work has been done by Christian relief organizations and the people of Nepal have seen the love of Christ displayed. The Day of the Earthquake April 25, 2015…
Connecting the church in the West to news of what God is doing through nonprofits around the world. Missions Box is a labor of love, using the secular news as a tool to showcase the relevance of Christian nonprofit work and its impact around the world. Christian Nonprofits are Still Relevant Increasingly, the Church in…
