In a year marked by drought and heatwaves, rockfalls and gaping crevices have made access to the top of Mont Blanc even more difficult and perilous -- to the great frustration of amateur mountaineers.. "Everywhere we walked there was just constant rockfall and the crevices constantly open up.
Tourism businesses in Indonesia's Komodo National Park began a month-long strike on Monday after the government imposed a huge price hike.. But it sparked uproar among locals who rely on tourism, and industry-related businesses in the national park -- still reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic -- were closed on Monday in protest.
The largest fire in California this year is forcing thousands of people to evacuate as it destroys homes and rips through the state's dry terrain, whipped up on Sunday by strong winds and lightning storms.. The fire was "intensified and spread by dry fuels, extreme drought conditions, high temperatures, winds and lightning storms," Newsom said in a statement.
Nichelle Nichols, a groundbreaking Black actress who played communications officer Nyota Uhura with cool authority on the popular 1960s series "Star Trek," has died at 89.. She also played Uhura -- a name taken from the Swahili for "freedom" -- in the first six "Star Trek" movies.
Portugal and France on Sunday battled major forest fires as temperatures rose sharply this weekend.. New fires, meanwhile, broke out in southeastern France on Sunday, with 350 hectares burned in Gard where a firefighter was seriously injured, and 35 hectares near Marseille hit, causing the partial closures of motorways.
Rescuers in Kentucky are taking the search effort door-to-door in worsening weather conditions as they brace for a long and grueling effort to locate victims of flooding that devastated the state's east, its governor said Sunday.. The National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center warned Sunday of the potential for flooding in a swath of the United States, including central and eastern Kentucky.
Rocks the size of fridges have been tumbling from Mont Blanc as summer temperatures soar, scaring away many hikers from Western Europe's highest mountain.. The sweltering temperatures of recent weeks have destabilised the mountain, according to Noe Verite, a warden at a shelter on the "Trois Monts" path.
Little snow cover and glaciers melting at an alarming rate amid Europe's sweltering heatwaves have put some of the most classic Alpine hiking routes off-limits.. - 'Postpone' - Alpine guides who usually lead thousands of hikers up towards Europe's highest peak announced earlier this week that they would suspend ascents on the most classic routes up Mont Blanc, which straddles France, Italy and Switzerland.
A Chinese booster rocket made an uncontrolled return to Earth on Saturday, US Defense Department officials said, as they chided Beijing for not sharing information on the potentially hazardous object's descent.. NASA administrator Bill Nelson criticized Beijing on Twitter Saturday, saying that the failure to share the details of the rocket's descent was irresponsible and risky.
At least 80 people have been killed and 30 others are missing in floods that have wreaked havoc across Iran for more than a week, state media reported Saturday.. Since the start of the Iranian month of Mordad on July 23, "59 people died and 30 are still missing in the incidents caused by recent floods," Yaghoub Soleimani, secretary-general of the Red Crescent Society, was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA. That is in addition to flash floods caused by heavy rains in the normally dry southern province of Fars that left at least 22 people dead just before the start of Mordad.
