What does "as" of "as the calamity shaped ~ mean?
Does it mean "because" or "while" or anything else?

Context>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The assessment of casualties has been difficult because of the widespread area affected by the rainfall, flooding and landslides. Authorities warned that landslides could strike even after rain subsides as the calamity shaped up to be potentially the worst in decades.

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cmertb

8 lug 2018

Domanda in primo piano

Inglese (Stati Uniti)
Russo Quasi esperto

I think this sentence is poorly written precisely because it makes you wonder. But it has to mean "because" here. If it meant "while", the tenses of the two clauses would have to match.

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cmertb

8 lug 2018

Inglese (Stati Uniti)
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I think this sentence is poorly written precisely because it makes you wonder. But it has to mean "because" here. If it meant "while", the tenses of the two clauses would have to match.

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monica8

8 lug 2018

Giapponese

@cmertb ありがとうございます。cmertb. May I ask you what "cmertb" means?

cmertb

8 lug 2018

Inglese (Stati Uniti)
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@monica8 Upon re-reading, it seems that the tenses do match: "warned" <=> "shaped up", so the meaning is very ambiguous. Now, since using "as" to mean "because" is stylistically rather poor, and isn't likely to be used in a news article, I think the correct answer is "while" after all.

"cmertb" doesn't mean anything, it was supposed to be "CMEPTb", but I misspelled it when I was creating this nick a long time ago. Now I just roll with it. I usually let people guess what it means since it's a linguistic puzzle.

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monica8

9 lug 2018

Giapponese

@cmertb Thank you very much! The usage of the "as" in this context seemed to be confusing even for an intelligent native English speaker.
I really appreciate how carefully you re-consider and explained its meaning.

p.s.
What does "CMEPTb" mean?

cmertb

9 lug 2018

Inglese (Stati Uniti)
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@monica8 It's a trick of using similar looking letters from a different alphabet. The hint is in the other language I list as my native.

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monica8

9 lug 2018

Giapponese

@cmertb
I think the following is what it means:

The Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Революційна Повстанська Армія України), also known as the Black Army or simply as Makhnovshchyna (Ukrainian: Махновщина), was an anarchist army formed largely of Ukrainian peasants and workers[1] under the command of the famous anarchist Nestor Makhno during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. They protected the operation of "free soviets" and libertarian communes in the Free Territory, an attempt to form a stateless anarcho-communist society from 1918 to 1921 during the Ukrainian Revolution.