The last few years have seen environmental disasters     1     a grand scale, and experts are predicting far worse to come. Jin Li reports on our Earth’s changeable weather patterns.

So why is nature beginning to turn on us? One answer is overpopulation. The population of the world     2     (grow) at the disturbing rate of 10,000 people an hour, nearly 90 million a year, with most of the growth in the     3     (develop) world. People in agricultural areas, without any means to earn their living, move to the cities, and then construct shabby homes from     4     materials they can find on poor clay soil. These homes, seldom made of bricks, can     5     (easy) fall down in earthquakes or slip and slide downhill in landslides, especially in mountainous areas.On top of that adds global warming. This has mainly been caused by the huge amounts of carbon dioxide     6     (produce) by factories and vehicles, and the destruction of the world’s forests. As a result, a     7     (hot) ocean causes more powerful winds. Atlantic hurricanes—their howling winds with speeds of over 300 kilometres     8     hour—are 40% stronger now than they were 30 years ago.

Most disaster experts believe there is the potential     9     things could get a lot worse. Professor Hou Ming, of Beijing University     10     (study) volcanoes and he warns that the world has not seen the worst nature can do.

In May 2021, Congo’s Mount Nyiragongo, one of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes, burst to life without warning. Lava erupted from cracks and     1     (stream) down the mountain toward cities below,     2     (leave) hundreds dead, missing or injured.

Now, using data from monitoring stations,     3     were built near the volcano in 2015, researchers have pieced together how that eruption happened so     4     (sudden). The data also suggests the event could have been deadlier and people should     5     (well) understand this volcano’s particular dangers before the next eruption. The mountain sits near     6     eastern border of Congo, threatening both the Congolese city of Goma     7     the Rwandan city of Gisenyi. Nyiragongo’s last two eruptions were both strong enough     8     (feel) by people living nearby.     9    , before the eruption on May 22, 2021, even the sensitive monitoring stations near the volcano didn’t notice clear warning     10     (sign) of lava on the move underground.