Become an Independent member to bookmark this article Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today. Join today Already a member? Log in Heavy rains fell Tuesday in eastern India after the second cyclone to hit the area in a week prompted evacuations of thousands of people. Cyclone Murasu made landfall in the morning near Ongole in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh state with maximum sustained winds of 100-110 kph (62-68 mph), the India Meteorological Department said.
Heavy rain was forecast for several hours as the cyclone weakened. Ahead of the storm, authorities closed schools and halted train services and some flights in the vulnerable areas. Thousands of people were also evacuated to safety. Authorities warned the rain could cause flooding in low-lying areas and disruptions to daily life. A storm surge of up to 1.5 meters (5 feet) was possible on the coast, the IMD said. The storm formed over the Bay of Bengal , where the warm waters have spawned some of the deadliest cyclones to hit eastern India, Bangladesh and Myanmar .
Left out here: Leaves out what changes the picture
The article never says that Murasu had already caused damage on landfall. Press Trust of India reported thousands of trees uprooted, hundreds of electric poles damaged and fishing boats wrecked. Without this, a reader of a piece about heavy rain believes Murasu has so far brought only rain and disruption.
Cyclone Arnab battered parts of Andhra Pradesh last week, killing at least five people, damaging homes and infrastructure and inundating roughly 200,000 acres of cropland.
The Independent reports Cyclone Murasu's landfall in Andhra Pradesh, the evacuations and last week's deadly Cyclone Arnab, but never says that warming makes intense cyclones and heavy rainfall more frequent or severe. A reader comes away seeing two cyclones in a week as weather alone. The article also says nothing of the damage Murasu was already reported to have caused.
Leaves out the climate link
Serious
“where the warm waters have spawned some of the deadliest cyclones to hit eastern India, Bangladesh and Myanmar”
Why this matters
The Independent explains the cyclone by the Bay of Bengal's "warm waters" and its past record of deadly storms. Nowhere in the article does it say that human-caused warming is making such storms and rainfall worse.
The impression it gives
A reader takes a second cyclone in a week, with heavy rain and flood warnings, as the normal behaviour of a warm sea. Nothing in the article tells them climate change plays any part.
The context
Human-caused warming has made intense tropical cyclones and heavy rainfall more frequent or more severe. The article carries no word on climate at all, not even a single line.
How we know
On the recordThat warming has made hot extremes, heavy rainfall, agricultural and ecological drought, fire weather and intense tropical cyclones more frequent or more severe.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
On the recordIt is unequivocal that human influence, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
Checked against the whole articleIt never uses the words “climate”.
The article never says that Murasu had already caused damage on landfall. Press Trust of India reported thousands of trees uprooted, hundreds of electric poles damaged and fishing boats wrecked. Without this, a reader of a piece about heavy rain believes Murasu has so far brought only rain and disruption.