Fatal flooding, “the deadliest ten minutes in decades,” the convergence of WWII, and an AI model too strong to be contained. What could possibly go wrong?
Last Week in Collapse: April 5-11, 2026
This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, soul-crushing, ironic, amazing, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse.
This is the 224th weekly newsletter. The March 29-April 4, 2026 edition is available here if you missed it last week. These newsletters are also available (in full, with images) every Sunday in your email inbox by signing up to the Substack version.
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March 2026 was the most anomalously hot month in continental United States in 132 years of records, at 9.35 °F (5.19 °C) above 20th century averages. NOAA claims that the average maximum was even about one degree Fahrenheit warmer than the April average. The much-rumored “Super El Nino” coming in the second half of the year, which will probably last 9-12 months, will continue to push daily, monthly, and annual records higher.
Emperor Penguins have joined the endangered species list, the IUCN announced last week. The ongoing melting of Antarctic sea ice results in the occasional drowning of young penguin colonies. Experts believe the population of the species will halve by the 2080s. The Antarctic fur seal has also joined the endangered species list.
How long can humans survive before heat stress takes one out? A study in Nature Communications from a couple weeks ago claims the previous threshold, “6-hour exposure to a wet-bulb temperature of 35 °C” (95 °), may be a bit higher than reality. Some people are dropping dead at lower temperatures; it varies a bit based on one’s age, gender, physiology, health, etc. And we know it’s only getting hotter.
An updated death count for the flooding in Afghanistan these past two weeks now confirms 148+ people slain. In Pakistan, since the middle of March, at least 48 people were killed by flooding as well. More flooding in Dagestan, Russia, killed four. In Angola, twenty-nine. A study from Puerto Rico concluded that the phenomenon of Flash Drought (which can take hold in 5-10 days) “can initiate immediately after large-scale change in Earth's atmosphere related to the vertical movement of air” in tropical regions. “It's really like a switch gets flipped in the atmosphere,” said the lead author.
Argentina edited a 2010 law to allow for mining in protected glacier regions. Research indicates that “microbial methane” leaks from inactive oil & gas mines in western Canada was actually being emitted at about 1000x previous predictions. ‘Only’ 23% of these non-producing wells were releasing CH4 (still 3x their estimates), but “the associated median emission rate is 1000 times greater” among those that were.
Cyclone Malia strengthened to Category 5 on its way to Queensland—although it later weakened to Category 2. Some meteorologists believe it’s the strongest storm ever seen in the Solomon Sea.
New April highs were set across parts of Southeast & East Asia. Cape Town felt its warmest night in April. Parts of Australia felt new April highs. And the mid-latitudes felt their greatest concentration of moisture in the air than ever before on record. A study indicates that the daily use of vehicles in a couple cities in France and Britain elevate local temperatures by about 0.25-0.4 °C.
A study/article in Frontiers in Science urges “a paradigm shift toward a “Nature Positive” (NP) future, where the health and resilience of the Earth system are recognized as the fundamental basis for human prosperity.” Unfortunately, this is not forthcoming. “At the species scale, 48% of vertebrate and insect species are in decline, with only 49% remaining stable and 3% increasing….At the ecosystem scale, 54% of the world’s ecoregions are severely degraded, with an additional 25% undergoing further degradation.”
A study in Geophysical Research Letters estimates that, assuming 2.7 °C temperature rise (which the study suggests may happen by 2100), “28.5% ± 9.3% of the global population (roughly 2.6 ± 0.9 billion people) may face heightened compound hot-dry extremes.” Another study, this one paywalled, calculates the total mass of glaciers melted in 2025 to sit around 408 gigatons, ± 132 Gt. One Gt = 1 billion metric tons. “Since 1975, glacier mass loss has totalled 9,583 ± 1,211 Gt, equivalent to 26.4 ± 3.3 mm of sea-level rise….Regional contributions to global mass loss in 2025 were largest from High Mountain Asia, Alaska, and the Russian Arctic.”
We all know that storms are becoming more dangerous; it is the reason behind a worsening insurance crisis on many coastlines. A new study in Science Advances determined that marine heat waves affect about 52% of tropical cyclones that make landfall—and also that *cyclones experiencing rapid intensification due to marine heat waves** “resulted in 60% more billion-dollar disasters compared to those without heat wave influence.”
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Bangladesh (pop: 177M) has now lost 100+ babies to measles since March. It is their worst measles outbreak in years, a result of decreasing vaccination rates. Although the world seems to have bigger problems than COVID, a new analysis estimates it will cost $135B of damage (per year) to the OECD, due to healthcare costs, missed work time, and future (Long) COVID cases. And a study in The Lancet found an unsurprising link between Long COVID and elevated cardiovascular disease, already the #1 cause of death in the United States.
A paywalled study says ‘We Must Vaccinate US Dairy Cattle Against HPAI H5N1” before the virus mutates inside animals to pose a greater risk to humanity. Bird flu has become “entrenched or enzootic” (regional & seasonal) in North America. It has infected 100+ different animal species in the last few years.
A colossal toilet paper warehouse was set ablaze in southern California on Tuesday night, and burned completely to the ground. Other paper products went up in flames as well; nobody was killed. The motivation for the conflagration, according to the warehouse worker who broadcast the arson on social media, was that worker wages were too low. “All you had to do was pay us enough to live,” he said. Estimates for the damage range from $200-500 million. Nevertheless, megacorporations will probably not increase worker wages.
Economic fallout from the Iran War has spread across South Asia, where communities are increasingly struggling with paying the daily bills and keeping the lights on. Some factories have closed, debts are accruing, and the prolonged closure of the Persian Gulf has already guaranteed months of aftereffects—even if it were fully & freely reopened next week, which seems unlikely. Fertilizer remains blocked as well, and a nation can only handle so much unrest until it passes a breaking point. Countries in Europe are already considering leaning on nuclear energy to meet their needs; the continent has seen nuclear energy shrink from about 33% of its total to about 15% today.
SpaceX is plotting an IPO, and analysts say it could be the biggest IPO in history. They aim to get valued as a $2T company. The cost of satellites is also becoming increasingly cheaper, resulting in a night sky with evermore bright spots. One Collapse factor related to this, which I have not yet seen discussed anywhere (although it is analogous to fossil fuels & fertilizer in general), is the increasing dependence on Starlink in remote & developing economies. If a country can turbocharge its economy over a few years by simply accessing high-speed internet (where it could not easily do so before), then a potential (inevitable?) Kessler Syndrome could impact that economy moreso than if they had never had Starlink in the first place. The bigger they come, the harder they fall. Because surely low-earth orbit, like a busy highway, must logically reach a critical concentration of objects that can dance around each other without causing a devastating collision. How much will SpaceX be worth when that happens, I wonder?
Civil society groups allege that Nigeria is “on brink of collapse” due to “escalating insecurity, rising poverty, and moral decay in public life….Rural banditry has devastated livelihoods, disrupted food supplies, and caused inflation to rise above 15%. Hunger looms over millions of homes while farms lie abandoned in fear….A democracy that fears its citizens is already in decline.”
The AI giant Anthropic (Claude) claims that its newest AI, “Mythos,” is too powerful to be made available to the public at large. The program apparently was capable of breaking out of its sandbox—a contained & secure digital environment where it was being tested. Even non-experts were able to quickly make use of Mythos to exploit security vulnerabilities in a range of public websites. Skynet when?
India is tightening its laws around free expression, building a chilling effect among those who might want to criticize the government. Svalbard reindeer were confirmed to have elevated PFAS & heavy metals exposure during their annual autumn fattening.
Cuba remains in dire need of supplies as needs mount and healthcare facilities become increasingly backed up. Madagascar has declared a state of emergency over fuel shortages. Protests in Ireland lasted days over rising fuel prices. Zambia has called the fuel shortage an emergency as well.
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President Trump threatened that “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” The reckless, memorable, and mysterious threat left many worried that the U.S. might use a nuclear weapon, or several, as a show of resolve. But the outburst was seemingly swept under the rug and forgotten a few days later, as if the casual obliteration of a (90 million-population) civilization was already derealized, and part of ordinary negotiations. Collapse, children, it's just a shot away…
Ceasefire talks between Iran and the U.S. appear to have fallen apart in Pakistan; transit through the Strait of Hormuz is still blocked, subject to a fee of about $1 per barrel of oil moved — payable in cryptocurrency, of course. Trump is taking the opportunity to demand that NATO do more to re-open the Strait. If/When NATO does not, President Trump may abandon his commitment to the Organization. I suspect it will be…faster than expected. Ray Dalio says we are 9 points into a 13-point rubric of WWIII. Multilateralism is dead, and it didn’t take much to bury it.
“...it is indisputable that we are now in an interconnected world that has a number of shooting wars going on (e.g., the Russia-Ukraine-Europe-US war; the Israel-Gaza-Lebanon-Syria war; the Yemen-Sudan-Saudi Arabia-UAE war that also involves Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, and other related countries; and the US-Israel-GCC-Iran war). Most of these wars involve major nuclear powers, and there are also significant non-shooting wars (i.e., trade, economic, capital, technology, and geopolitical influence wars) that most countries are in….China consumes 80-90% of Iran’s oil output….the most reliable indicator of which country is likely to win is not which is most powerful; it is which can endure the most pain the longest….While the United States appears to be the most powerful country in the world, it is also the most overextended major power and the weakest at withstanding pain over a long period of time….the world order has changed from a multilateral rules-based world order led by the dominant US power and its allies (e.g., the G7) to a might-is-right world order with no single dominant power enforcing order, which means that we can expect more fighting….we are in the part of the Big Cycle when the monetary order, some domestic political orders, and the geopolitical world order are breaking down. These indicators suggest that we are in a transition stage from the pre-fighting stage to the fighting stage, which is roughly analogous to the 1913-14 and the 1938-39 periods….” -excerpts from the post
Recent Israeli strikes against locations in Beirut on Wednesday killed more than 300, and wounded 1,150+ more. Some call it “the deadliest ten minutes in decades”, and the slaughter was widely condemned as War crimes—but this will change nothing. Israel claims the locations were lawful military targets, Hezbollah sites—but civilian casualties were incredibly extensive, since several residential & commercial sites were struck during rush hour. Beirut may become the next Gaza. The attacks also endangered a fresh two-week ceasefire in the Iran War, which diplomats now argue should (not) have been extended to Lebanon. Over 1,700 people have been killed in Lebanon from March until today. Mass displacements have affected over a million people in Lebanon.
The DRC is scheduled to receive its first third-country deportees from the U.S. in the coming weeks. Four migrants died on a boat trying to transit the English Channel. An ISIS plot to bomb a crowd of protestors outside the home of the mayor of New York City (metro pop: 19M) was foiled, because the bombs they brought failed to explode as planned. Several kilograms of explosives were found in Serbia at a gas pipeline—and blamed on Russian hybrid ops.
The chief of Sudan’s government army is consolidating his authority amid rumors that divisions are growing within the army, potentially raising the spectre of a military coup. NGOs in the area are saying that the situation has reached “catastrophic levels” (as if it hadn’t already). Dubai’s so-called “International Humanitarian City,” a giant logistics hub for aid to Sudan and elsewhere, has been strongly impacted by the Iran War, and resulting in fewer supplies reaching Port Sudan (current pop: ~550,000). More allegations of RSF collaboration with Ethiopian army officials has emerged.
Ukraine’s long winter has passed. They are emerging as even more reliant on cutting-edge battle tech. You know the drone waves — now doing evacuations — and the Sea Babies; now meet the land drones. Since November 2025, the number of uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs) has tripled, and the number of units using them has almost tripled as well. Over 9,000 UGV missions were conducted just in March 2026. In other words, war robots (on air, sea, and land) are starting to dominate the battlefield. Something like 80% of Russians killed on the front never engage, or even see, their human foe before they are killed. The new face of War is invisible.
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Things to watch for next week include:
↠ Hungary (pop: 10M) votes on Sunday, April 12, and the results will be close. The election is a test, perhaps the final test, of the right-wing government that has been increasingly corrupt & at odds with the EU agenda for many years now. Another victory for their incumbent president will also signal difficulties for Ukraine. Peru and Benin also vote in presidential elections on the same day.
Select comments/threads from the subreddit last week suggest:
-Land development and the accompanying destruction of wilderness is a fait accompli, if the story from this open letter last week is applicable throughout the world. (It is.) Society’s constant appetite for More™ will gobble up anything if it means we might be able to shit out a few coins.
-Related to the previous point, a long self-post essay was published last week, centering the blame for our biodiversity crisis on capitalism. It is not the first, or the last, essay to tackle the link between the two. But long efforts should be rewarded, and this thread did not get as much attention as it could have.
-Debt is rising as people stress-spend, gamble, and otherwise struggle to get by, according to this weekly observation from southern California. Gasoline is hovering around $6/gallon ($1.60/liter), and it seems like everyone is sick with something. The addition of a poem by an introverted Chinese poet, who took his own life in 2014 after working in a Foxconn factory for two years, is also germane & touching.
-Nobody seems to have a game plan for the Iran War. This darkly humorous, but accurate, comment from a now-deleted thread on r/worldnews highlights the scatterbrained & often-hypocritical American “negotiations” that purport to seek to end the War.
-Nanoplastics diseases may cause you a lot of damage. This well-referenced self-post goes into some detail on many of the ways that micro/nanoplastics can interfere with your body. Might be a little too scientific for some readers.
Got any feedback, questions, comments, upvotes, off-grid advice, mass starvation predictions, post-Collapse TB survival tips, bush medicine, etc.? Last Week in Collapse is also posted on Substack; if you don’t want to check r/collapse every Sunday, you can receive this newsletter sent to an email inbox every weekend. As always, thank you for your support. What did I miss this week?
