B: 2022-06-01Natural disasters cause devastating damage to communities and infrastructure everyyearareas.

Natural disasters cause devastating damage to communities and infrastructure every year. Effective disaster response is hampered by the difficulty of accessing affected areas during and after events. Remote sensing has allowed us to monitor natural disasters in a remote way. More recently there have been advances in computer vision and deep learning that help automate satellite imagery analysis, However, they remain limited by their narrow focus on specific disaster types, reliance on manual expert interpretation, and lack of datasets with sufficient temporal granularity or natural language annotations for tracking disaster progression. We present MONITRS, a novel multimodal dataset of $\sim$10,000 FEMA disaster events with temporal satellite imagery with natural language annotations from news articles, accompanied by geotagged locations, and question-answer pairs. We demonstrate that fine-tuning existing MLLMs on our dataset yields significant performance improvements for disaster monitoring tasks, establishing a new benchmark for machine learning-assisted disaster response systems.

A worker checks the radiation level inside the control room of reactor No 4, where the Chornobyl disaster happened in 1986. A worker checks the radiation level inside the control room of reactor No 4, where the Chornobyl disaster happened in 1986. In February 2025, a cheap Russian drone tore through Chornobyl's confinement shelter. Workers warn the site of the world's worst nuclear accident is not safe yet The dosimeter clipped to your chest ticks faster the moment you step off the designated path inside the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. Step back, and it slows again - an invisible line between clean ground and contamination.

What are Russia's gains from the Iran war? 'We are not losers; we are winners' But the calm is deceptive. Two soldiers scour the skies, hands firmly gripping anti-aircraft guns mounted on pick-up trucks parked on a small, dilapidated bridge on a tributary of the Pripyat River. Danger is all around, both in the surrounding land, which still carries the legacy of the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster, with pockets of intense radioactive contamination, and above, where Russian drones and missiles launched from just across the border in Belarus, a short distance to the north, regularly pass overhead. The area is known as the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ), a restricted area of approximately 30km (19 miles) in diameter, comparable in size to Luxembourg, established to contain the spread of contamination. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, briefly occupying the CEZ and the surrounding area, large swaths of it have become militarised, adding another layer of restriction to an already tightly controlled and hazardous environment. Yet despite the CEZ's many dangers, four decades on from the Chornobyl disaster, small communities of scientists, elderly returnees and soldiers have carved out lives among its abandoned buildings, while wildlife thrives in the surrounding forests.

Indonesia's government has filed multiple lawsuits seeking more than $200m in damages against six firms, after deadly floods wreaked havoc across Sumatra, killing more than 1,000 people last year, although environmentalists criticised the moves as inadequate. Environmentalists, experts and the government pointed the finger at deforestation for its role in last year's disaster that washed torrents of mud and wooden logs into villages across the northwestern part of the island. The sum represents both fines for damage and the proposed monetary value of recovery efforts. The suits were filed to courts on Thursday in Jakarta and North Sumatra's Medan, the ministry added. "We firmly uphold the principle of polluter pays," Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq said in a statement.

These genetic libraries plan for worse-case scenarios. An employee at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Germany shows off a specimen of frozen plant seeds from the institute's genebank. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Amid the 872-day siege of Leningrad in the early 1940s, nine people died protecting a library. This library was not for books, but for seeds collected from around the globe.

Nick Reiner's siblings Romy and Jake describe'unimaginable pain' as they break silence after brother's arrest and parents' murder The full story of Nick Reiner and these murders is so much more unbearable than everyone thinks. Even Hollywood wouldn't dare write it: MAUREEN CALLAHAN I saw Nick Reiner just hours before the murders. I've known the family for decades - he was always a weirdo... but what I spotted that night haunts me Tara Reid investigation into alleged drugging is CLOSED as police say there is'not enough evidence' Dilbert creator reveals he's paralyzed from waist down amid aggressive cancer battle he begged Trump to help with Dan Bongino set to QUIT Trump admin after FBI job'put strain on his marriage' When GUY ADAMS revealed his 10-week body transformation, it was so astonishing he was accused of faking it. MIT professor was shot dead in apartment building's HALLWAY as petrified neighbors describe finding his bloody body I knew Rob Reiner's monster son Nick his whole life: Family friend reveals his'grunting' and violent outbursts... how he always SMELLED... and sign everyone missed at age 11 Harry and Meghan are making Netflix adaptation of The Wedding Date after couple announced'first look' multi-year deal with streaming giant Baby-faced stepbrother considered a'suspect' in Anna Kepner's cruise ship murder breaks cover as FBI weighs charges Erika Kirk vs Candace Owens exposed: Insider reveals high-stakes secret meeting drama... and what comes next US car dealer charged with FRAUD after bankruptcy revealed depths of American's debt crisis Revealed: Exactly what a week of drinking is doing to you. HARRY WALLOP took heart, liver, brain and blood tests to find out the truth.

If a major disaster like Fukushima or Chernobyl ever happens again, the world would know almost straight away, thanks to an array of government and DIY radiation-monitoring programs running globally.

A damaged concrete pillar supporting the Hachinohe Line in the city of Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, on Wednesday. False claims that a powerful earthquake in northern Japan was "human-caused," along with artificial intelligence-generated videos, are spreading rapidly across social media after the quake struck Aomori Prefecture on Monday evening. The earthquake registered an upper 6 on Japan's seismic intensity scale, prompting warnings from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and the Cabinet Secretariat against the spread of unverified information that could hamper emergency response efforts. Misinformation circulated widely on platforms including X, echoing a pattern seen during previous disasters such as the Noto Peninsula earthquake in January 2024, when false rescue pleas and conspiracy theories also gained traction online. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.

Hillsborough police report'may not give answers' Families of some of those killed in the Hillsborough disaster fear they may once again be denied full accountability as the long-delayed report into police conduct surrounding the stadium crush is due to be published on Tuesday. Several people who worked on the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation - including a former director - have told the BBC they doubt the report will deliver all the answers survivors and bereaved relatives were promised. Some have warned that it may lead to accusations of another Hillsborough cover-up. Families have also criticised the length and cost of the investigation - the largest of its kind ever carried out in England and Wales. The police watchdog has spent more than 13 years examining the actions of South Yorkshire Police and other forces in the aftermath of the 1989 disaster in which 97 Liverpool supporters were killed during an FA Cup semi-final at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough ground.