AFP

A “dangerous” heat wave was taking hold of the southwestern United States Tuesday, with punishing temperatures expected for the next week.

Forecasters said the mercury could reach as high as 112 Fahrenheit (44 Celsius) in the densely populated Los Angeles suburbs as a heat dome settles in over parts of California, Nevada and Arizona.

“Dangerously hot conditions expected through the week,” the National Weather Service warned.

“A prolonged period of excessive heat will significantly increase the potential for heat related illnesses, particularly for those working or participating in outdoor activities,” the NWS said.

“Those without access to adequate or reliable cooling or hydration will be at most risk, but much of the population could be susceptible to impacts as well.”

Nighttime temperatures are not expected to offer much relief, with lows struggling to get below 80 Fahrenheit in many places.

Things were heating up in and around Los Angeles on Tuesday, with inland areas already experiencing stifling temperatures.

But, said David Sweet, a meteorologist at the NWS in Oxnard, California, it is going to get worse.

“We’re looking at a heat wave starting on Wednesday and continuing through at least Monday of next week,” he told AFP.

“During that time, we’ll be looking at conditions hot enough to warrant an excessive heat warning,” he added.

It is not unusual for southern California to experience heat waves in September, but temperatures above 100 Fahrenheit are considered hot even for a place almost perpetually baked by sunshine.

The heat wave comes after swathes of the southwest were lashed with torrential rains over recent weeks.

Some areas, including the notoriously dusty Death Valley, suffered flooding, and one person died after being swept away in Zion National Park in Utah.

Scientists say global warming, which is being driven chiefly by humanity’s unending appetite for the power that fossil fuel provides, is making natural weather variations more extreme.

Heat waves are getting hotter and more intense, while storms are getting wetter and, in many cases, more dangerous.

The James Webb space telescope has revealed dazzling new detail of a previously known slice of the cosmos 32 million light-years away, in a new picture released by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The infrared technology of the telescope, launched in December 2021, has allowed for an even clearer view of the so-called Phantom Galaxy than astronomers had ever seen before.  

“Webb’s sharp vision has revealed delicate filaments of gas and dust in the grandiose spiral arms which wind outwards from the center of this image,” NASA and the ESA said Monday. 

“A lack of gas in the nuclear region also provides an unobscured view of the nuclear star cluster at the galaxy’s center,” the agencies said in a statement.

The whirling celestial form, officially called M74, is located in the Pisces constellation 32 million light-years away from Earth. 

The Webb image shows the galaxy’s brilliant white, red, pink and light blue appendages of dust and stars swirling around a bright blue center, all set against the dark backdrop of deep space. 

M74 was previously photographed by the Hubble telescope, which captured the galaxy’s spiraling blue and pink arms, but instead showed its glowing center as a soft yellow. 

The Phantom Galaxy is a “favorite target for astronomers studying the origin and structure of galactic spirals,” NASA and the ESA said. The picture taken by Webb will help them “learn more about the earliest phases of star formation in the local Universe,” and record more information about 19 star-forming galaxies close to our own Milky Way. 

Astronomers will also use the picture to “pinpoint star-forming regions in the galaxies, accurately measure the masses and ages of star clusters, and gain insights into the nature of the small grains of dust drifting in interstellar space,” the statement said. 

Webb’s new pictures have thrilled the space community as the telescope orbits the Sun at a distance of a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth, in a region of space called the second Lagrange point.

The telescope, which has a primary mirror more than 21 feet (6.5 meters) wide, is an international collaboration between NASA, the ESA and the Canadian Space Agency. It is expected to operate for approximately 20 years.

Aid efforts ramped up across flooded Pakistan on Tuesday to help tens of millions of people affected by relentless monsoon rains that have submerged a third of the country and claimed more than 1,100 lives.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called the flooding “the worst in the history of Pakistan”, adding it would cost at least $10 billion to repair damaged infrastructure spread across the country. 

The rains that began in June have unleashed powerful floods across the country that have washed away swathes of vital crops and damaged or destroyed more than a million homes.

Authorities and charities are struggling to accelerate aid delivery to more than 33 million people, a challenging task in areas cut off because many roads and bridges have been critically damaged.

Displaced people have been wandering what dry land remains, seeking shelter, food and drinking water.

“For God’s sake help us out,” said Qadir, 35, who was camped out with his extended family on a road near the southern city of Sukkur.

“We walked along the road for three days to reach here. There’s nothing left back at home, we only managed to save our lives.”

In the country’s south and west, many Pakistanis have crammed onto elevated highways and railroad tracks to escape the flooded plains.

“We don’t even have space to cook food. We need help,” Rimsha Bibi, a schoolgirl in Dera Ghazi Khan in central Pakistan, told AFP.

Pakistan receives heavy — often destructive — rains during its annual monsoon season, which are crucial for agriculture and water supplies.

But such intense downpours have not been seen for three decades.

Pakistani officials have blamed climate change, which is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather around the world.

– ‘Mind-boggling devastation’ –

“To see the devastation on the ground is really mind-boggling,” Pakistan’s climate change minister Sherry Rehman told AFP.

“When we send in water pumps, they say, ‘Where do we pump the water?’ It’s all one big ocean, there’s no dry land to pump the water out.”

She said “literally a third” of the country was under water, comparing scenes from the disaster to a dystopian movie.

Tributaries of the Indus River, which runs the length of the South Asian nation, have sent torrents of water rushing downstream.

Pakistan as a whole has been deluged with twice the usual monsoon rainfall, the meteorological office said, but Balochistan and Sindh provinces have seen more than four times the average of the last three decades.

– ‘Monsoon on steroids’ –

The disaster could not have come at a worse time for Pakistan, where the economy is in free fall.

Appealing for international help, the government has declared an emergency.

Aid flights have arrived in recent days from China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, while other countries including Canada, Australia and Japan have also pledged assistance.

The United Nations launched a formal $160 million appeal on Tuesday to fund emergency aid.

“Pakistan is awash in suffering. The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids — the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a video statement, calling it a “colossal crisis”.

His spokesman later said that Guterres would visit the country next week in “solidarity” with victims.

And the United States said Tuesday that it was sending $30 million in humanitarian assistance. 

Pakistan’s Sharif promised donors that any funding would be responsibly spent.

“I want to give my solemn pledge and solemn commitment… every penny will be spent in a very transparent fashion. Every penny will reach the needy,” he said.

Pakistan was already desperate for international support and the floods have compounded the challenge.

Prices of basic goods — particularly onions, tomatoes and chickpeas — are soaring as vendors bemoan a lack of supplies from the flooded breadbasket provinces of Sindh and Punjab.

There was some relief on Monday when the International Monetary Fund approved the revival of a loan programme for Pakistan, releasing a $1.1 billion tranche.

Makeshift relief camps have sprung up all over Pakistan — in schools, on motorways and in military bases.

In the northwestern town of Nowshera, a technical college was turned into a shelter for up to 2,500 flood victims.

They sweltered in the summer heat with sporadic food aid and little access to water.

“I never thought that one day we will have to live like this,” said 60-year-old Malang Jan.

“We have lost our heaven and are now forced to live a miserable life.”

Mississippi officials declared a health emergency Tuesday after historic flooding damaged treatment systems and left 180,000 people in the state capital Jackson without safe drinking water.

Governor Tate Reeves warned residents about the crisis and on Tuesday deployed the National Guard to assist in water distribution throughout the city.

The Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) said water treatment pumps had failed and there were low levels of water in storage tanks serving Jackson.

Many city taps were dry, and water that was flowing was contaminated or untreated, officials cautioned.

“We do not have reliable running water at scale,” Reeves told a press conference late Monday. 

“The city cannot produce enough water to fight fires, to reliably flush toilets and to meet other critical needs,” he said, adding emergency services would distribute drinking water to residents in a “massively complicated logistical task.” 

Facing aging infrastructure, Jackson has been under a boil water order since late July.

Recent torrential rains intensified the crisis as the city’s Pearl River has faced historic flooding, which finally started to ease Monday, Jackson City Hall said in a statement. 

“It is no surprise that we have a very fragile water-treatment facility, and (the city’s treatment plant) OB Curtis receives its water from the reservoir, and because of the river water coming into the plant, we have to change how we treat the water,” Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said at a press conference, according to the Mississippi Clarion Ledger newspaper.

According to the MSDH, water treatment plants in Jackson do not have sufficient maintenance staff or certified operators to safely run the system, leading to potential for contamination from dangerous organisms such as E.Coli and Giardia.

Reeves urged residents to avoid the water coming out of their faucets. 

“In too many cases, it is raw water from the reservoir being pushed through the pipes. Be smart, protect yourself, protect your family, preserve water, look out for your fellow man and look out for your neighbors.”

Without water, Jackson public schools were conducting virtual learning Tuesday, with no return to school yet scheduled.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the situation.

“At his direction, we have been in regular contact with state and local officials, including Mayor Lumumba, and made clear that the Federal Government stands ready to offer assistance,” she tweeted. 

Jackson’s water system has suffered “significant deficiencies” since 2016, according to an MDSH report, with lead-contaminated pipes often more than a century old. 

The majority-Black city’s former public works director Charles Williams told AFP in April it could cost up to $5 billion to replace the necessary infrastructure.

The United Nations and Pakistan launched an emergency appeal for $160 million on Tuesday as the country was submerged by floods, with the United States quickly offering $30 million.

The funds will provide 5.2 million of the worst-affected and most vulnerable people with aid including food, clean water, sanitation and emergency education, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, calling the disaster a “colossal crisis”.

“Pakistan is awash in suffering. The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids — the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding,” he said in a video statement before announcing plans to visit Pakistan next week.

The United States, the largest donor to Pakistan, said it was providing a fresh $30 million for urgent needs including food, safe water and hygiene.

The US Agency for International Development in a statement announcing the aid said that one of its disaster specialists was working out of Islamabad to assess needs and coordinate with the Pakistani government and other local partners.

The United Nations said the aid would cover the initial six months of the crisis response and help to avoid outbreaks of diseases such as cholera, as well as providing nutrition to young children and their mothers.

It will also provide assistance to refugees and facilitate schemes to reunite families separated by the disaster.

“The people of Pakistan urgently need international solidarity and support,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, told a press briefing in Geneva.

He said some 500,000 people displaced by the floods were sheltering in relief camps, with many more temporarily staying with host families.

Around 150 bridges have been washed away, he said, and 3,500 kilometres (2,175 miles) of roads damaged in flooding and landslides, hampering access.

“The heavy rains are forecast to continue and with many dams and rivers already at flood levels, the flooding is likely to get worse before it gets better,” Laerke said.

– Health facilities wrecked –

Tens of millions of people have been affected by relentless monsoon rains that have submerged a third of Pakistan and claimed more than 1,100 lives.

The rains that began in June have unleashed the worst flooding in more than a decade, washing away swathes of vital crops and damaging or destroying more than a million homes.

World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier said Pakistan’s health facilities had been severely affected by the flooding, with 180 “completely damaged”.

He said there was already a vast disparity between rural and urban healthcare provision, while treatment for non-communicable diseases such as diabetes would be “severely” impacted.

“It’s a vast problem which opens up here,” he said.

The UN refugee agency said there were 1.3 million Afghan refugees registered in Pakistan and it had already delivered $1.5 million worth of emergency relief and shelter items — but “much, much more” would be needed in the coming weeks.

– ‘Climate catastrophe’ –

Guterres branded the floods a “climate catastrophe”, saying South Asia was one of the world’s hotspots where people are “15 times more likely to die from climate impacts”.

“It is outrageous that climate action is being put on the back burner as global emissions of greenhouse gases are still rising, putting all of us — everywhere — in growing danger,” he said.

The UN’s World Meteorological Organization said that Pakistan and northwest India have been witnessing an intense 2022 monsoon season.

One site at Padidan in the southern Sindh province was reporting 1,288 millimetres of rain so far in August, compared to the monthly average of 46 millimetres, said WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis.