natural_disaster

How do you take care of hundreds of thousands of disaster refugees? It's not like you can plop down a coal power plant and fire it up wherever it's needed. Or can you? Andrew Leinonen has put together a strong concept design for an airship covered in solar panels that can be flown into a disaster area, anchored in, and immediately begin to serve power to the rescue effort.

A lively and sometimes scrappy debate on whether global warming is fueling bigger and nastier hurricanes like Katrina is adding an edge to a gathering of forecasters here.

Asia was hardest-hit by natural disasters last year that worldwide killed more than 16,500 people and caused $62.5 billion in damage, a U.N.-backed research group said on Friday.