Not too far into 2024, multiple disasters around the world have turned into major catastrophes. These have caused hundreds of innocent people to die, and so many families to weep and cry, and we should support all the people affected by these disasters.
On January 1, 2024, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit the west coast of Japan. As AP News says, the earthquake ultimately killed 213 people as of January 11th. The devastating shaker was concentrated on the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa. Afterward, there was a tsunami that reached a height of 3 meters and hit the coastal cities of Japan. That’s not the only bad thing that’s happened in Japan this year.
According to the NY Post, the very next day, at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, Passenger Flight JAL 516 and a military relief jet crashed on the runway. This caused JAL 516 to go up in flames. Luckily, the plane’s crew was well-trained, and in eighteen minutes, they had all passengers off of the plane. Unfortunately, five out of the six people on the military relief jet died.
On January 5th, in the middle of Alaska Airlines flight 1282 from Portland, Oregon to Ontario, California, a door plug detached midair. The entire flight lasted a total of 20 minutes before it landed back in Portland. Luckily, there was no one in the seats directly next to the door plug that detached. Everyone was wearing their seatbelts, showing the importance of wearing one, because if one weren’t wearing a seatbelt, there would be a possibility of them getting sucked out due to the difference in air pressure. However, there were a few phones that flew out of the hole. The flight was a Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft and though the cause of this incident is unknown, the FAA (the Federal Aviation Administration) has ordered a temporary grounding of the aircraft.
There was also a landslide in China on January 23, 2024, in Liangshui in the Yunnan province. The death toll is currently 34 and many people are still missing. According to CNN, ”The landslide was triggered by the collapse of a cliff at the top of the mountain slope, with the collapsed mass measuring about 100 meters (330 feet) wide, 60 meters high and 6 meters thick…”
The Israeli airstrikes in Gaza have killed numerous people and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on since 1948. PBS states that the airstrikes that took place on February 3, 2024, killed more than 44 Palestinians, alongside over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed due to the war. The war was sparked due to the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The lives that have been lost are a testimony to the ruthlessness of nature and the lives that have been saved can be used to show the kindness of people who help. Each life lost is a tragedy, and we offer condolences to the families who are suffering.
