authorities point to the role of climate change after the death of a child buried by a landslide

Earlier this week, a 77-year-old retiree died in the floods which have been affecting the Alpine country for several days.

A five-year-old boy was killed and another injured on Wednesday June 12 after a landslide in Austria, where weeks of heavy rainfall have weakened the soil. The child, who was with a woman and three other boys on a road near Graz, was swept away by a landslide “about 100 cubic meters of earth”.

Quickly located, he could not be saved, specify the police. Another 7 year old boy was “lightly affected” and taken to hospital by helicopter. Earlier this week, a 77-year-old retiree died in the floods which have been affecting the Alpine country for several days.

“The climate crisis is here, we feel its effects which are ever more significant”, reacted Thursday the Minister of the Environment, Leonore Gewessler, quoted by the APA agency. Impassable roads, flooded cellars and fields with thousands of firefighter interventions in several regions: heavy rains have brought tributaries and lakes to alarming water levels while posing risks in forested and mountainous areas.

As the planet warms, the atmosphere contains more water vapor (around 7% for each additional degree), particularly increasing the risks of heavy precipitation events in certain regions of the world. However, if other factors are taken into account, intense rains are “the first direct cause of landslides”while “the slopes are saturated with water and therefore less resistant”, explained to AFP Michael Lotter, of the National Institute of Geology GeoSphere.

The warmer the planet, the more water vapor the atmosphere contains (around 7% for each additional degree), particularly increasing the risks of heavy precipitation episodes in certain regions of the world. These more intense rains favor landslides. Slovenia and southern Austria are particularly exposed due to their location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, the Alps and the Pannonian plain of central Europe.

Since the 19th century, the average temperature of the Earth warmed by 1.1°C. Scientists have established with certainty that this increase is due to human activities, which consume fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas). This warming, unprecedented in its speed, threatens the future of our societies and biodiversity. But solutions – renewable energies, sobriety, reduced meat consumption – exist. Discover our answers to your questions on the climate crisis.