In an age of rapid-fire social media updates, memes, and never-ending cat videos, what’s the world still collectively paying attention to?
Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu and Pallavi Rao visualize the the top 10 news stories of 2023 according to Google Search trends.
Hope Amidst Disasters
In February, southern Turkey and parts of Syria suffered a deadly earthquake which killed more than 50,000 people and left more than a million without a home. Adverse weather conditions and poor infrastructure hampered rescue efforts, worsening the effects of the disaster.
While rebuilding has since begun, the scale of the project is vast: more than 300,000 buildings collapsed or were damaged beyond repair. Steadily rising inflation in the country, along with a depreciating Turkish lira, has ballooned reconstruction costs.
Meanwhile, an ongoing war in Sudan is being fought between opposing factions within Sudan’s military government. Millions of people are facing food insecurity, and there are widespread reports of war crimes.
On a more positive note, Google users also looked up Chandrayaan-3, India’s third lunar-exploration mission. In August 2023, India became fourth country to successfully land on the moon.
Hurricane Season and Violent Events
Another year gone by, another global temperature record broken. Rising temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean, along with the effect of El Niño, led to plenty of tropical storms in the region, of which the World Meteorological Organization named 20.
Of them, Hurricane Idalia caused widespread damage in Florida, and Hurricane Lee resulted in prolonged power outages in Maine, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.
On the Pacific side, Hurricane Hilary brought torrential rain and flooding to parts of Mexico and the southwestern U.S.
Finally, the Israel-Hamas war has led to more than 15,000 deaths in Palestine and 1,500 fatalities in Israel.
On December 22nd, the UN Security Council passed a resolution “calling for humanitarian pauses” in the fighting and increased aid to Gaza. An earlier resolution (which called for an immediate ceasefire) failed after being vetoed by the United States.
Meanwhile, a proposed peace plan by Egypt (which helped architect an earlier six-day temporary ceasefire) has not been well received, though neither the Netanyahu government, nor Hamas has outright rejected it.
