The Environment

The public health crisis happening is merely a preview of a larger climate crisis.

Around 620 indigenous people live in this UNESCO-recognized biome, spread out in six different villages in a five-acre territory. They continue to struggle to maintain their language, traditions and rituals.

Brazil’s divisive President Jair Bolsonaro has taken another step in his bold plans to develop the Amazon rainforest.

SÃO PAULO (AP) — Their bodies painted black, dozens of members the Brazil’s Guarani Mbya tribe lift their hands and sing a mourning song for hundreds of felled trees beside their village. They weep, chant and perform funeral rites for a lost patch of forest on the edge of Latin America’s biggest city.

Many indigenous ruins lie along the shore, where ancient settlements thrived.

“Our children are not safe. They [the DE] wants to rush through this process, and we don’t trust the government,” school parent Mely Román told Latino Rebels.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico’s government is opening public schools next week without knowing if they can withstand a big earthquake as concerns grow about weakened infrastructure that is displacing thousands of students.

La falta de transparencia del Departamento de Educación permea el proceso de las inspecciones luego de los temblores, tal como ocurrió con las revisiones que se hicieron después del huracán María.

PONCE, Puerto Rico (AP) — The Antonetti family sat in the shade of a tree eating orange slices while contemplating the long day ahead of them in a dusty parking lot in southern Puerto Rico.

Seismologists like me are constantly working to better understand earthquakes, including advancing ways to help vulnerable communities before, during and after damaging events.

With Puerto Rico still in recovery and healing from the trauma of Hurricanes Irma and María, Chicago’s Puerto Rican diaspora is taking the lead in earthquake relief efforts to help avoid history repeating itself from both 2017 hurricanes and the 1918 earthquake.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The greatest immediate death threat after earthquakes, such as those Puerto Rico has experienced for more than two weeks, are traumas that people may be exposed to in the face of a structural collapse. But Health Secretary Rafael Rodríguez Mercado has not shared a plan to address this risk nor has contacted his specialized trauma team since the earthquakes began, dangerously exposing the public.

They call for long term investments instead of piecemeal solutions.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — El mayor peligro inmediato de muerte luego de terremotos como los que vive Puerto Rico hace más de dos semanas son los traumas que pueda recibir la gente por el colapso de estructuras, pero el secretario de Salud, Rafael Rodríguez Mercado, no ha comunicado un plan para atender este tipo de riesgo ni ha contactado a su equipo especializado en trauma desde que iniciaron los sismos, exponiendo peligrosamente a la ciudadanía.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — More than two years ago, Hurricane María revealed that Puerto Rico was utterly unprepared for a powerful hurricane despite its location in one of the world’s most storm-vulnerable regions.

Latino Rebels Radio: January 12, 2020

Latino Rebels Radio: January 10, 2020

GUAYANILLA, Puerto Rico (AP) — A new community has popped up in this earthquake-damaged town in southwest Puerto Rico: it houses 300 people, a dozen police officers and one macaw.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck Puerto Rico before dawn on Tuesday, and was followed three hours later by an aftershock measuring 6.0. They are the largest in a series of quakes that have struck the U.S. territory in recent days and caused heavy damage in some areas.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A 4.5-magnitude earthquake hit Puerto Rico on Thursday in the latest of a rare string of quakes that has frightened many in the U.S. territory.

“We have a very rich history in ways to wrap things,” said Claudia Hernández, the city’s director of environmental awareness. “We are finding that people are returning to baskets, to cucuruchos,” she said, referring to cone-shaped rolls of paper once used to wrap loose bulk goods like nuts, chips or seeds.