Tropical Cyclone Gezani | Image credit MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

February and March 2026 were marked by a series of devastating climate-induced disasters and escalating conflicts across the globe. Together, these crises have profoundly impacted lives, livelihoods, health, housing, and the environment—placing millions of people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. During this period alone, national and international agencies reported seven medium and large-scale weather and climate-related disasters, highlighting the growing intensity and frequency of such events.

Major Climate and Natural Disasters

• Brazil – Floods and Landslides: In late February, relentless rainfall triggered catastrophic flooding and landslides in Minas Gerais, particularly in Juiz de Fora. More than 70 lives were lost, and nearly 10,000 people were displaced, leaving communities devastated and in need of urgent relief.
• Madagascar – Tropical Cyclone Gezani (Early February): Cyclone Gezani struck Madagascar with destructive force, claiming over 30 lives and displacing thousands. It was the second major cyclone to hit the country within just two weeks, compounding vulnerability and damage.
• Southern Africa – Regional Flooding: Persistent heavy rains worsened flooding across Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. The widespread inundation caused severe damage to infrastructure, agriculture, and homes, deepening regional humanitarian needs.
• Colombia – Widespread Floods: Continuous rainfall from early February led to flooding across 17 municipalities, damaging more than 12,000 homes and disrupting thousands of lives.
• Kenya – Floods (March): Beginning March 6, intense rains triggered deadly flooding across parts of Kenya, resulting in more than 70 reported deaths and widespread displacement.
• India – Tornado and Floods (March 15): A powerful tornado struck Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, killing two people and injuring dozens. The disaster was followed by extensive flooding, further exacerbating local hardship.
• Philippines – Canlaon Volcano Eruption (Mid-March): A moderate eruption of Canlaon Volcano sent a 5-kilometer ash plume into the sky, affecting at least 54 villages with ashfall and disrupting daily life.

Escalating Conflicts and Humanitarian Crises

Alongside natural disasters, ongoing conflicts continue to force millions from their homes and deepen global instability. In Ukraine and Gaza, displacement remains widespread as civilians continue to flee in search of safety. Meanwhile, intensifying conflict in Iran and other parts of the Middle East is claiming thousands of lives and rendering vast areas uninhabitable. These conflicts are not only humanitarian tragedies but are also straining the global economy and worsening living conditions far beyond the immediate regions. Fear, uncertainty, and psychological stress have become part of daily life for affected populations.

According to recent reports from UN and UN-supported platforms:

• Lebanon: Over 1.2 million people—nearly one-fifth of the population—have been displaced.
• Somalia: Rising fuel costs and supply disruptions linked to Middle East conflict threaten to worsen conditions for children already suffering from prolonged drought.
• Afghanistan: Nearly two-thirds of families affected by severe drought report increased child labour, while only about one in five children is attending school.
• Yemen: An estimated 18.3 million people are facing acute food insecurity, highlighting one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises.

A Growing Global Emergency

These overlapping crises—climate disasters and armed conflicts—are placing unprecedented strain on vulnerable communities and humanitarian systems worldwide. The scale and complexity of needs underscore the urgency for coordinated global action, sustained funding, and long-term resilience-building efforts.

Without immediate and collective response, the gap between humanitarian needs and available support will continue to widen, leaving millions at risk.

Supporting Communities Through Lutheran Disaster Response

Asia is one of the most disaster-hit regions in the world, with floods, cyclones, earthquakes, landslides, and volcanic eruptions. Unplanned urbanization, a steep increase in population, depleting forest green cover, and environmental degradation trigger the most severity and complexity.

The impacts are on the day-to-day lives of people, affecting their resources and disrupting earning sources, and delays in service delivery, poor health status, and loss of assets contributing significantly to acute food insecurity, inadequate access to safe water, sanitation, and hygienic conditions, loss of shelter, and settlements with increased health care risks.

Attendees of the humanitarian response training in Sidhikalang, Indonesia

Women and girls are always disproportionately affected, as in most disasters, loss to women/girls’ lives is greater. Lack of opportunities to learn, poor access to engage in the planning process, lack of care at the family level, gender-based violence(GBV), discrimination to exercise their human rights in different platforms, and overall recognition of gender roles in nation-building initiatives, increase their exposure to disasters. In our counts of countries in Asia that are hit by disasters every year, Indonesia is always in the news due to high frequency and multiple occurrences of hydro-geo-meteorological hazards.

As these recurring events target communities multiple times, it is very difficult for people to recover their losses and improve their resilience. Without strategic support, it becomes more challenging for the communities to plan for their future needs. When a disaster strikes in Indonesia, it depletes economic assets and breaks the sociocultural fabric of the society.

Subhashis Roy and Chandran Martin teaching in Sidhikalang, Indonesia

In such difficult situations where we witness the loss of life, livelihood, infrastructure, household assets, and environment, the role of Lutheran Churches in Indonesia has been widened being first responders to disasters. Lutheran Churches are strategically placed to address “people in need.” High risk with low coping capacity makes Indonesia more exposed to disasters and demands a strategic move to increase resilience toward disaster impacts.

Lutheran Disaster Response (LDR) is one unique flagship program of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America(ELCA) that contributes to global, regional and national efforts in reducing the suffering and enhancing accountability for those affected by disasters.

Attendees from the humanitarian response training in Mentawai, Indonesia

ELCA acknowledges the role of Lutheran churches in Indonesia in saving lives, spiritual care, and leading life with dignity. Recognizing the role of Lutheran Churches in Indonesia, the ELCA contributes to increasing capacity through its multi-faceted and multi-sectoral support that help ELCA companion churches and ecumenical partners response to immediate and medium-term needs and spreads God’s love to people most in need.

Since 2023, ELCA has been accompanying the Komite Nasional Lutheran World Federation (KNLWF) in Indonesia to reach some of the most remote areas and increase their capacity to prevent, prepare, mitigate, recover, and build back better from disasters. In this journey, a successful accompaniment model has emerged that truly shares, learns, spreads, and transfers knowledge and resources for people to recover early. Based on the positive feedback and recognition of ELCA-supported capacity-building events in Indonesia, ELCA-KNLWF organized the 2nd phase of the training events in November 2024 in the Sidhikalang and Mentawai islands of Indonesia. More than 40 participants have actively engaged in such sharing and learning events.

Participants expressed very positive and overwhelming views on the significance of such events and preparing church members with tools and techniques that ease their role in disaster management.

Sherry Panggabean has put together a finalized report on the earthquake and subsequent aftershocks that struck off the west coast of Sumatra yesterday. It has a good map showing where the quakes happened and is a much appreciated update on how those in the region were affected.

Read the report: Final Report Earthquake 11 April 2012

A powerful earthquake, registering at 8.7 on the Richter Scale, hit Indonesia around 4pm local time (4am CST). It was located off the west coast of Simeulue Island in Aceh Province (150 km off Western coast of Aceh and about 140 km Northwest of Nias Island) and was felt as far away as India. The earthquake was followed by three powerful aftershocks and a tsunami warning issued immediately after the initial quake.

Initial worries were heightened since this same area was struck by a major earthquake and tsunami in December 2004, which led to over 170,000 deaths and major damage to the coastal regions. Thankfully, the earthquake did not trigger a major tsunami and according to Sherry Panggabean with the Center for Disaster Risk Management and Community Development Studies, which is funded by the ELCA, the warning was called off at 8pm local time.

Sherry also reported that their staff in other regions of Indonesia had reported back that there were no major injuries or structural damage. The ELCA Global Mission Director for Asia – Pacific Continental Desk Franklin Ishida has been in contact with our one missionary in the region, Megan Ross, and has shared that she is unaffected.

With the threat of a major disaster passed, this event has given us time to pause and marvel at disaster preparedness work in action. Working with other Lutheran World Federation partners the ELCA supports the Center for Disaster Risk Management and Community Development Studies (CDRM&CDS) which has as part of its mission “to facilitate community disaster management and risk preparedness”. This involves activities like people immediate evacuating to the streets following an earthquake, getting to higher ground when hearing of the warning of a possible tsunami and the offices of CDRM&CDS checking in with each other to be communication centers for their communities.

And this is exactly what happened. The community knew what to do and did it. Through disaster risk reduction and preparedness, fears were mitigated by a solid plan of action, confusion was not given sway because of proper communication channels and at the end of the day lives that may have been in danger were kept safe. A huge prayer of thanksgiving to the staff of CDRM&CDS for their work and ministry.

The following update is from Sherry Panggabean of the Center for Disaster Risk Management and Community Development Studies (CDRM&CDS), located in Medan, Indonesia. This program is sponsored by the Lutheran World Federation. In particular I would lift up her request for prayers on behalf of the people of Indonesia during this time of political turmoil. For possible petitions see the ELCA Worship prayer resource Violence. (pdf)

Dear all,

The Government of Indonesia plans to raise fuel prices by around 30 percent to keep the state budget healthy, as soaring global oil prices have strained the state coffers’ ability to pay for subsidies aimed at keeping fuel prices below the market price. The plan that is slated to come into effect on April 1 had caused protests across the nation this week, starting from Monday 26.3.2012.
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