Happy Earth Day! Make sure to treat the planet well this year to try and reduce our carbon footprint and lower our impact on the Earth.
Contents:
11 people are missing after heavy rains in China's coastal Guangdong province, which includes the massive metropolises of Shenzhen and Guangzhou, home to over 17.5 million and 16 million people, respectively. Thankfully, the storms have avoided the larger cities, but multiple regions have been relatively hard-hit. Over 50,000 people have been evacuated after rivers burst their banks and streets were covered in waist-level waters, and vehicles were completely washed away. Entire first floors were inundated, wiping out homes and businesses, and landslides even occurred in remote mountain areas that trapped citizens. These powerful storms are quite unusual for the area at this time of the year, and unfortunately, they are expected to return later this week.
In a similar scenario, over 135 people have been killed by heavy rains in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past week. 21 of those 135 killed were farmers harvesting wheat when they were struck by lightning, and the rest were affected by the high water levels. After an unusually dry winter, heavy rains have inundated buildings and caused rivers to burst their banks, covering villages in multiple feet of water, in addition to damaging over 100,000 acres of farmland and killing thousands of livestock. The region of Balochistan has suffered the most, taking on over three times its average for this time of year, and the entire country of Pakistan has suffered from over two times its April average. This is extremely unusual for this month, as the monsoon season for South Asia is normally from June to September.
Upcoming Events:
Earth Day (Monday, April 22)
Passover Begins (Monday, April 22)
World Book and Copyright Day (Tuesday, April 23)
English Language Day (Tuesday, April 23)
Spanish Language Day (Tuesday, April 23)
World Immunization Week Begins (Wednesday, April 24)
International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace (Wednesday, April 24)
International Girls in ICT Day (Thursday, April 25)
World Malaria Day (Thursday, April 25)
International Delegate’s Day (Thursday, April 25)
International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day (Friday, April 26)
World Intellectual Property Day (Friday, April 26)
World Day for Safety and Health at Work (Sunday, April 28)
Fact of the Day (Reader's Digest): In the English grading system, E and F were both used for failing grades, but E was omitted because students and parents kept thinking of an E as 'excellent' instead of representing a fail, like F.
Quote of the Day (Gracious Quotes): In the end, a vision without the ability to execute it is probably a hallucination. (Steve Case)
Word of the Day (Merriam-Webster): Noblesse oblige (noun)- Noblesse oblige refers to the idea that people who have high social rank or wealth should be helpful and generous to people of lower rank or to people who are poor.
In a Sentence: As the inheritor of a great fortune, he was raised to have a strong sense of noblesse oblige, not only volunteering and donating to charity, but advocating for structural change to address inequality.
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