Wildfires which killed at least 38 people and left a trail of destruction in northeastern Algeria this week have now been contained, a civil defence official told AFP on Friday.. "Nobody came to help us, neither the fire service nor anyone else," he told AFP. Fires last year killed at least 90 people and seared 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of forest and farmland in the country's north.
A major wildfire in eastern Spain that has destroyed vast swathes of land gathered pace overnight after flaring up again despite heavy rainfall, as another started Friday inside a nearby natural park, officials said.. Over the past week, hundreds of firefighters have been battling two major wildfires raging out of control in the Valencia region, with a bout of heavy rainfall offered some respite, almost totally extinguishing the flames.
A provincial capital in southwest China has dimmed outdoor advertisements, subway lighting and building signs to save energy, official announcements said, as the area battles a power crunch triggered by record-high temperatures.. And Chengdu metro said in a video on China's Twitter-like Weibo platform that it would also turn off advertisement lights and "optimise" the temperature in stations to save energy.
A New Zealand city devastated by flooding will take years to recover, the mayor said on Friday, as hundreds more homes were evacuated.. Nelson Mayor Rachel Reese said the damage to roads and the city's infrastructure will "take years, not months" to repair.
A US judge sentenced an extradited Liberian man to 63 months in prison for conspiring to traffic millions of dollars' worth of horns and ivory from endangered rhinoceros and elephants, federal prosecutors said Thursday.. The estimated average retail value of the rhinoceros horn and elephant ivory was at least around $3.4 million and $4 million respectively.
Algerian firefighters battled Thursday to rein in forest fires that have ravaged large parts of the drought-hit North African country, killing almost 40 people including 12 who died in a bus trapped by the flames.. At least 38 people have been killed including more than 10 children, according to multiple sources, including local journalists and the fire service.
"Forever chemicals" used in daily items like nonstick pans have long been linked to serious health issues –- a result of their toxicity and extreme resistance to being broken down as waste products.. PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, were first developed in the 1940s and are now found in a variety of products, including nonstick pans, water-resistant textiles, and fire suppression foams.
An Italian farm became an open-air morgue earlier this month after around 50 cows were poisoned by young sorghum plants, an accident experts blame on drought.. With this, experts were able to save around 30 cows on August 11, when three more farms in Piedmont were hit by the same phenomenon -- although not before 14 died. pho-glr/ar/ams/har
The world would save nearly 700 million tonnes of carbon pollution each year -- more than Canada's annual emissions -- if every person adopted the Dutch way of life and cycled on a daily basis, new research showed Thursday.. - 'Going Dutch' - The team calculated that if everyone emulated the Danish commute of cycling an average of 1.6 kilometres (1 mile) each day, the world could save some 414 million tonnes of CO2 a year -- equivalent to Britain's annual emissions.
Brutal storms with winds gusting up to 224 kilometres per hour (140 miles per hour) left five people dead on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica early Thursday, including a 13-year-old girl who was killed when a tree fell onto her campground bungalow, authorities said.. The girl was killed at a campground near Sagone, on the island's rugged western coast, where nine others were also injured, including one seriously, rescue workers told AFP. At a nearby beach in Coggia, a 72-year-old woman died after the roof of a beachside hut was blown off and landed on the vehicle she was in, regional authorities said.
