Droughts, floods, wildfires: 2024 natural disasters in pictures

A resident flees an encroaching forest fire in Vina del Mar, Chile, on February 3. Intense forest fires burning around a densely populated area killed several people and destroyed hundreds of homes. [Esteban Felix/AP Photo] Advertisement A drone view shows a man working on a car, partially submerged by floods caused by heavy rains, as people stand nearby, in Avellaneda, in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on March 12. [Agustin Marcarian/Reuters]A volunteer uses a kayak during a rescue operation through a road flooded due to heavy rains in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on April 18. A UAE record was set with 259.5mm of rainfall recorded over 24 hours. [Abdel Hadi Ramahi/Reuters]A man is rescued by military firefighters after the floods in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, on May 4. The country experienced over April and May its worst floods in 80 years with 181 dead, landslides and a dam collapse. [Renan Mattos/Reuters]An air tanker drops retardant behind a home while battling the Toll Fire near Calistoga, California, on July 2. An extended heatwave blanketing northern California resulted in red flag fire warnings and power shutoffs. [Noah Berger/AP Photo]An aerial view of people crossing a walkway built above floodwaters on a street in Maying town in Jiujiang, in China’s central Jiangxi province, on July 3. Heavy rainfall caused rivers to rise and flood in southeastern and central China, displacing hundreds of thousands. [AFP] Advertisement A man carrying his dogs gets off a boat along a flooded road following heavy rains brought by Typhoon Gaemi, in Marikina City, Metro Manila, the Philippines, on July 24. The storm affected the northern Philippines, where it displaced almost 300,000 people, as well as northern Taiwan and Southeastern China. [Lisa Marie David/Reuters]A worker operates a mobile crane to remove dead fish floating from the Xiria River near Volos, central Greece on August 28. Nearly a year after catastrophic floods in the Thessaly region, tonnes of dead fish washed into the Gulf of Volos, 170km north of Athens. The dead fish, experts say, came from Lake Karla, which was drained in 1962 to combat malaria and expanded to three times its normal size after the floods. [Sakis Mitrolidis/AFP]Residents transport drinking water from Humaita to the Paraizinho community, along the dry Madeira River, a tributary of the Amazon River, during the dry season, Amazonas State, Brazil on September 8. All time lows were recorded in the main tributaries of Amazon River, since the record started in the 1950s. [Edmar Barros/AP Photo]A boy sits in a floating basket as people wade through a flooded street following the impact of Typhoon Yagi, in Hanoi, Vietnam, on September 11. [Khanh Vu/Reuters]A resident hugs her relative after being evacuated from her flooded house in Jesenik, Czech Republic, on September 15. [Petr David Josek/AP Photo]Villagers combat a wildfire in Busturenga, Albergaria-a-Velha in Aveiro, Portugal, on September 16. Portugal battled northern forest fires that killed two people and injured a dozen firefighters. [Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP]Smoke from a wildfire is pictured over Quito, Ecuador, on September 24. Quito was in a “critical” situation due to five forest fires that forced the preventive evacuation of some 100 families, and covered whole neighbourhoods in smoke. More than 10,980 hectares around the country were affected by the wildfires. [Galo Paguay/AFP]A woman checks on a baby inside a flooded house as Hurricane Milton passes close to the Cuban coast, in Batabano, Cuba, on October 9. The storm caused heavy downpours and devastation in Cuba and Florida. [Norlys Perez/Reuters]Cows and buffaloes wade into the polluted Yamuna river on a smoggy morning in New Delhi, India, on November 5. Yamuna is one of the most polluted rivers in the world, with industrial waste floating as a foam on its surface. [Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters]Members of the V battalion of Spain’s military emergency unit, UME, use a canoe to search an area for bodies washed away by the floods in the outskirts of Valencia, Spain, on November 8. Extreme rainfall triggered flash floods that killed more than 200 people in eastern Spain, in the country’s worst floods in a century. [Emilio Morenatti/AP Photo]Residents carry their belongings as the river swells, following heavy rains from Typhoon Toraji in Ilagan City, Isabela province, the northern Philippines, on November 11. Along with Yinxing, Usagi and Man-yi, it was among four tropical cyclones that existed simultaneously in the Western Pacific in November, a first since records began in 1951. [Noel Celis/AP Photo]This photograph shows damage to a slum with precarious housing in Mamoudzou, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, on December 17, after the cyclone Chido hit the archipelago. [Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP]