By Eunille Santos

With reports from Jossa Soler

The Mayans could have gotten it right.

With the series of unprecedented natural disasters that occurred last year and are still occurring with an increasing frequency, the December 21, 2012 prophecy may actually be lurking around the corner, aside from the historic and religious attributions to it.

On April last year, Super Tornado outbreak struck the United States and Canada. With more than 300 tornadoes across 15 states and USD 11 billion reported damages, the incident was tagged as one of the strongest since 1925. Alabama fared the worst, with more than 230 fatalities and roughly 2,200 injured.

The ice-melting in Greenland also set records. According to the studies spearheaded by the National Space Institute (NSI) of Denmark, if the phenomenon continues to a complete meltdown, the sea level can raise up to 21 feet, enough to fill the water of the Gulf of Mexico. NSI is the only research organization in Denmark with the basic funding and mandate to carry out space research, and one of its main areas of study is sea level and ocean dynamics.

Severe drought also affected the East African Region last year. Dubbed as the “worst drought in 60 years” according to Stephen Gwyne-Vaughan, CARE country director for Kenya, the crisis still threatens 10 million lives in the region as the people are experiencing food shortage due to lack of precipitation. CARE is an international humanitarian organization that aims to solve poverty in different parts of the globe.

Asian countries were no exceptions to these phenomena as extreme flooding took place in the Southeastern region. Thailand experienced what the World Bank named as the “World’s 4th costliest disaster” when massive floods inundated the country, causing USD 45 billion in damages, and leaving about 657 people dead, according to American meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters, citing data from AON Benfield, a global provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage.

Mindanao locales, on the other hand, faced the wrath of Tropical Storm Washi, locally known as Typhoon Sendong, with more than a thousand dead just days before Christmas, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. A day before the storm struck,  Sendong was carrying as much as 50 millimeters of rainwater, which is almost the same amount that storm Ondoy brought back in 2009, based on a report by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

2012, a year of disasters?

Less than a year after the 9.0-magnitude “Great Sendai Earthquake” and the massive tsunami, Japan once again face the wrath of an earthquake when a 6.8 magnitude shook Japan off the country’s coast on the first day of the New Year, according to the US Geological Survey.

Do these successive catastrophes foreshadow the prophesized “end of the world”?

Scientists explain it differently.

In Japan’s case, the country is a part of the Pacific’s “ring of fire”—an area of high seismic and volcanic activity. It actually accounts for about 20 percent of the earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater on the Richter scale.

Climate change was also referred to as a major cause of the successive catastrophes worldwide. The worsening situation of pollution and the thickening of the atmosphere due to the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities cause the climate to change unpredictably and drastically, thereby producing greater risk in the global environment.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if the current trend continues, sea level could rise from 15-95 cm by 2100, causing flooding and massive damages. Climate zones could shift towards the poles by 150-550 km in the mid-latitude regions causing forests, deserts, and other unmanaged ecosystems become wetter, drier, hotter or colder. Established by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization, IPCC is an international body for the assessment of climate change.

A comprehensive study of IPCC also points out that Human activities, such as mining and illegal logging and burning fuels, contribute to the unpredictable change of climate and adds to the severity of these occurrences, producing greater repercussions. In the local setting, as early as January this year, 25 were found dead in a landslide in Napnapan village, Pantukan, Compostela Valley. Department of Environment and Natural Resources secretary Ramon Paje said that the fissure on a ridge of the mountain that was discovered by geologists last year was aggravated by rainwater saturation and continuous diggings by the miners.

Efforts have already been made to reduce the risk of natural disasters that are happening worldwide. Global campaigns on climate change awareness have been made. The United Nations started the International Day for Disaster Reduction (IDDR) last 2009, and globalized it October 13 last year. It aims to raise awareness on what people can do to reduce the risk of natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and tornadoes.

Certain predictions have already been made about the events that might transpire this 2012. For one, Ivan Stein, an entrepreneur and engineering and computer science graduate from the University of Connecticut, devoted 10 years of research in this field, and came up with detailed understanding of the events leading up to 2012 through his website, www.timeline2012.net. Some of the possible occurrences that he cited are geophysical and magnetic pole shifts, and even entering a new ice age.

But despite the successive unprecedented disasters and the controversial predictions, the future still holds no certainties whether the world will meet its doomsday or not.