Majuro, Marshall Islands | AFP | Friday 3/11/2016 - 01:41 GMT

Residents in low-lying areas of the Marshall Islands were braced for ongoing flooding Friday, as a series of inundations underscored the Pacific island nation's vulnerability to climate change.

A combination of king tides and storm surges have swamped several communities in the Marshalls this week, tossing rocks and debris into roads, backyards and homes.

Majuro, Marshall Islands | AFP | Saturday 7/4/2015 - 02:39 GMT

Residents in the Marshall Islands capital Majuro attempted a clean up Saturday after a powerful storm damaged houses and smashed boats while another unseasonal typhoon brewed nearby.

Majuro Atoll's normally calm lagoon was turned into a cauldron of high waves on Friday, ripping fishing vessels and yachts from their moorings and smashing them on to reefs.

High winds tore roofs from houses, knocked down trees and caused a power outage affecting half the city which is home to about 25,000 people.

08/30/2013 04:14 GMT

WELLINGTON, August 30, 2013 (AFP) - The Marshall Islands has warned that the clock is ticking on climate change and the world needs to act urgently to stop low-lying Pacific nations disappearing beneath the waves.

Marshalls Foreign Minister Phillip H. Muller issued a plea for action as he prepares for next week's Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), which includes some of the countries most affected by the rising seas blamed on global warming.

06/26/2013 02:07 GMT

by Giff Johnson

MAJURO, June 26, 2013 (AFP) - As the US urges world leaders to ramp up action on climate change, the leader of one small island chain in the North Pacific Ocean has already got the message -- watching helplessly as rising seas slowly erode his birthplace.

The idyllic beaches on the island of Buoj where Marshall Islands President Christopher Loeak fished as a boy are already submerged, and the ever-encroaching ocean now threatens to wash away roads, schools and airstrips.

Giff Johnson

MAJURO, Oct 19, 2009 (AFP) - Pacific islands in danger of being obliterated by rising sea levels should seek aid for relocation at a crunch UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, a Fiji-based scientist said.

"By 2100, I don't see how many islands will be habitable," professor Patrick Nunn, a climate change researcher at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji said ahead of the opening of a regional climate change conference Monday.

Nunn is chairing the Pacific Climate Change Roundtable meeting in the Marshall Islands capital …

by Marlowe Hood

PARIS, Sept 2, 2009 (AFP) - Africa and much of south Asia face extreme risk from climate change but top carbon polluters will be relatively shielded from its ravages, according a ranking of 166 nations obtained by AFP Wednesday.

Somalia, Haiti and Afghanistan top the Climate Change Vulnerability Index, calculated from dozens of variables measuring the capacity of a country to cope with the consequences of global warming.

"We wanted to look at what is going to impact human populations," explained Fiona Place, senior environmental risk analyst …

MAJURO, Jan 19, 2009 (AFP) - The United States may provide emergency aid to two former Pacific territories after high waves hit low lying areas of the two atoll nations late last month, officials said.

US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials are touring the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia this week assessing damage from the high waves that hit homes and crops and displaced hundreds of people.

Two FEMA inspectors left late Sunday with Marshall Islands Disaster Office authorities on a 14-day trip to assess the damage that prompted both the …

MAJURO, Dec 25, 2008 (AFP) - A state of emergency was declared in the Marshall Islands late Christmas Eve as widespread flooding displaced hundreds of islanders, damaged dozens of homes and threatened public health.

Government officials said Wednesday the flooding showed how vulnerable the western Pacific atoll nation is to very small changes in weather conditions.

The islands have been pounded three times in the past two weeks by powerful waves caused by storm surges that coincided with high tides, swamping the main urban centres of Majuro and Ebeye that are less than a metre …