Just ten days ago, we welcomed a new year, a new decade and we surely did it with a lot of hope – hope for equality, peace and a better future.

But the way things are turning out, it seems that our hopes are already shattered. Fires, quakes, floods, mass protests and armed conflicts, we’ve seen it all just within the first 10 days of 2020.

India was already in the midst of mass protests in the wake of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act when the new year rang in.

And while we were hoping for things to get better, what we got was the news of an armed attack on the students and teachers of JNU in Delhi on Sunday, 4th January. 

gulf news

Violence and bloodshed is how we started our year. The protests which followed, brought thousands of students on to the streets.

While India is in turmoil, things aren’t peaceful even on the global front. Tensions between Iran and USA escalated to the point of an armed attack in what could possibly be the 3rd World War.

With ballistic missiles, deadly drones and thousands of soldiers involved, this is just gonna cause havoc and destruction.

Countless of innocent lives are at stake in both the countries and as tensions escalate further, their lives would be disrupted and damaged beyond repair. Some of the effects of this armed conflict between the two countries are already visible – rising oil prices and falling stock markets.

CNN

As tensions in the Middle East continue to soar, another sad news came from Tehran, where a Ukrainian airplane crashed minutes after take-off and all 176 passengers on board died on the spot.

CNN

While the Ukrainian authorities previously said that ‘mechanical reasons’ are responsible for the crash, they are now stepping back from their statement. Speculations are rife that the crash might have something to do with the conflict in the region.

Amid all this, climate change, a phenomenon that we have been denying for years, began to show its signs.

In what could be termed as the worst forest fires in Australia, as many as 1 billion wild animals are already being feared dead. A large number of others who survived are now homeless with nowhere to go.

BBC

While animals have been the worst affected due to these bush fires, major Australian cities were engulfed in smoke recording their unhealthiest air ever.

So much so, that the people of Australia were literally choking on New Year’s day.

While millions of animals were charred to death in one part of the world, tens of thousands of people were forced to take shelter elsewhere after rains wreaked havoc in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta and neighbouring areas.

The city saw its deadliest floods ever and the death toll is only increasing as rain shows no signs of subsiding. 

CBS News

Nature’s fury was also seen in Puerto Rico, which has been trembling for last two weeks now. Quakes after quakes, the island nation has seen more than 500 tremors in the last 10 days. And experts say it isn’t over yet, there are more to come.

Measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale, the quake earlier this week, was the strongest quake to hit the island in 102 years. And the damage caused is so intense that it will take almost an year for things to get normal.

Talking to media, Mayor of Guayanilla Nelson Torres Yordán explained the intensity of the quakes and how it is a matter of concern.

Things are really very tense about what has been going on because this is not normal — so many tremors.
latimes

And all this within 10 days of starting 2020.

It’s not that Puerto Rico hasn’t seen quakes before, or Australia has never had forest fires. These events are concerning because of their unprecedented intensity and nature.

It is believed that the way in which we start our new year determines how it’s gonna be throughout. And looking at all these events, it feels that 2020 is already going to shit.