Simon Scarr

The collapse of insects

The most diverse group of organisms on the planet are in trouble, with recent research suggesting insect populations are declining at an unprecedented rate.

With Julia Janicki, Gloria Dickie, Jitesh Chowdhury and Catherine Tai

Seoul crowd crush

How a night of Halloween revelry turned to disaster in South Korea. The disaster was hours in the making, witness accounts and call transcripts show, leaving police facing questions over their slow response.

With Josh Smith, Ellis Ng, Ju-min Park, Adolfo Arranz and Jitesh Chowdhury

In the eye of the storm

How specialised aircraft plunge into hurricanes to collect scientific data to help us understand their inner workings

With Adolfo Arranz, Manas Sharma and Gerry Doyle

Submerged cities

How unprecedented floods left parts of Pakistan underwater. Floods from record monsoon rains killed over 1,500, washing away homes, roads, railways, bridges, livestock and crops in damage estimated at $30 billion.

With Aman Bhargava, Sudev Kiyada, Jitesh Chowdhury and Anand Katakam

Why Arctic fires are releasing more carbon

With climate change raising Arctic temperatures faster than the global average, wildfires are shifting poleward and releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases, a Reuters analysis shows.

With Manas Sharma, Gloria Dickie and Adolfo Arranz

The road to stalemate

Nearly five months into what Russia had planned as a swift invasion, Ukraine has preserved its sovereignty and pushed back Russian forces in some areas. This report captures key moments on the road to a military impasse.

With Gerry Doyle, Samuel Granados, Dea Bankova, Prasanta Kumar Dutta and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute

How big was the Tonga eruption?

The explosive eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano may be one of the largest recorded in such detail. The blast was visible from space, with images of the massive ash plume going viral over the following days. But just how big was it?

With Manas Sharma

The race to reconnect Tonga

How engineers will repair the undersea communications cable which was severed by the massive volcanic eruption.

With Wen Foo, Vijdan Mohammad Kawoosa, Anand Katakam and Aditi Bhandari

The perfect storm

Data shows why the volcanic lightning storm from the Tonga eruption was unlike anything on record. Reuters used data from a ground-based global lightning detection network to visualize the lightning activity during the eruption.

With Manas Sharma

Flights over Kabul

When Afghanistan’s government collapsed and the Taliban began to roll into Kabul, a huge multinational evacuation began. Aircraft of all types flew in and out of the airport. Here is a look at what was flying and what they might have been up to.

With Gerry Doyle, Marco Hernandez, Wen Foo, Anand Katakam and Manas Sharma

Blast in Kabul

Explaining the powerful blast that tore through crowds near the southern wall of the Hamid Karzai International airport in Kabul, killing scores of civilians and at least 13 U.S. troops.

With Anand Katakam, Wen Foo, and Manas Sharma

Chaos in Kabul

Documenting the rush to evacuate to safety during the Taliban takeover. Afghanistan’s capital was thrown into chaos.

With Marco Hernandez, Wen Foo, Manas Sharma and Anand Katakam

Devoured

How China’s largest freshwater lake was decimated by sand mining. Dredging ships have sucked millions of tonnes of sand from the bed and shores of Poyang lake, drastically altering its ability to function.

With Manas Sharma

Mass cremations, day and night

How burial grounds and crematoriums across India were overwhelmed with bodies following a devastating second wave of COVID-19 infections.

With Marco Hernandez

#SOS

How India’s public, COVID-19 patients, and hospitals inundated Twitter with desperate pleas for help.

With Jitesh Chowdhury, Manas Sharma and Prasanta Kumar Dutta

Bats and the origins of outbreaks

As the World Health Organization reached its findings on the zoonotic origins of the novel coronavirus, we explained why bats make such ideal hosts for disease-causing viruses.

With Julia Janicki and Catherine Tai

The age of the “megafire”

Wildfires shattered records across a number of U.S. states in 2020, with scientists and state officials placing much of the blame on climate change.

With Manas Sharma and Sharon Bernstein

The search for answers

How investigators combed the sea bed for an explanation as to why Sriwijaya Air Flight SJ182 plunged into the Java Sea.

With Marco Hernandez

How the novel coronavirus evolved

The world is now dealing with a different type of SARS-CoV-2 than the one that emerged in China almost a year ago, with mutations creating many strains of the virus so far.

With Jitesh Chowdhury and Jane Wardell

Up in smoke

How California’s wine country was ravaged by wildfire damage. Smoke, harmful to wine grapes, blanketed much of the western United States during fire season.

With Marco Hernandez

Shifting smoke

How wildfires ravaging the U.S. West Coast sent smoke travelling between continents and up to record heights in the atmosphere.

With Marco Hernandez, Manas Sharma and Katy Daigle

Air attack

How California uses a fleet of specially equipped aircraft to battle wildfires. Here we explain the types of aircraft in action and their specific roles.

With Marco Hernandez and Manas Sharma

The threatened tribe

How a lust for gold is damaging Brazil’s remote Amazon. Illegal gold mining activity has risen sharply over the last five years in Brazil’s indigenous Yanomami reservation in the heart of the Amazonian rainforest, a Reuters review of exclusive data shows.

With Marco Hernandez

How coronavirus brought megacities to a standstill

Strict lockdowns, school closures and restrictions on commerce to curb the coronavirus in Southeast Asian countries brought a rare respite from transport mayhem in some of Southeast Asia’s most congested cities.

With Hwei Wen Foo and Manas Sharma

The anatomy of Singapore’s outbreak

Visualising every infection to show how the virus formed clusters as it made its way through the Southeast Asian island nation in the early stages of the outbreak.

With Manas Sharma

The Korean clusters

South Korea managed to avoid a major outbreak in the first few weeks of the virus. This changed with the emergence of “Patient 31.” Here’s how coronavirus cases exploded in churches and hospitals.

With Marco Hernandez and Manas Sharma

Stopping the spread

Explaining how we reach herd immunity through vaccination. Reuters simulations show how the novel coronavirus virus could spread at different rates through the same community, depending on levels of vaccination, movement, and safe distancing measures.

With Manas Sharma and Jane Wardell

A plateful of plastic

Microscopic pieces of plastic have been discovered in the most remote locations, from the depths of the ocean to Arctic ice. Another place that plastic is appearing is inside our bodies. We’re breathing microplastic, eating it and drinking plastic-infused water every day.

With Anand Katakam

Sizing up Australia’s bushfires

Visualising the immense scale of Australia’s 2019/2020 bushfire season.

With Manas Sharma and Marco Hernandez

Wiki wars: Hong Kong’s online frontline

How keyboard warriors besieged Wikipedia articles related to the anti-government protests in Hong Kong.

With Manas Sharma

Weapons of mass control, tactics of mass resistance

Police and protesters in Hong Kong were locked in a spiraling cycle of violence in 2019. A Reuters examination showed how the weapons and tactics of both sides have intensified as the tension has escalated.

With Gurman Bhatia, Marco Hernandez, Christian Inton, Anand Katakam and Peter Hirschberg
Reporting, editing and additional research with Hong Kong bureau.

Coordinating chaos

Explaining the tactics protesters used to fortify the frontlines during the Hong Kong protests. Among the waves of people was a well-developed system for moving supplies, providing aid and constructing barricades, all driven by hand signals.

With Marco Hernandez