Six people have died as forest and brush fires flared up again in Russia’s southern farmlands, burning down 532 homes and buildings, officials said yesterday.
“The bodies of six people were found in the fire, but this is preliminary information,” Mikhail Murzayev, the head of the investigative committee in the Volgograd region, told the RIA Novosti news agency.
Strong winds stoked fires that destroyed 532 buildings, including 400 homes, in about 20 villages in the Volgograd and Saratov regions, an emergency ministry spokeswoman said. The Volgograd region lies some 1,000km southeast of Moscow.
“Thousands of people are without shelter,” the spokeswoman, Irina Andrianova, was quoted by the agency as saying.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday ordered authorities to mobilize all means to fight the fires as the emergency ministry warned the fires risked spreading to other southern regions.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin yesterday pledged the two fire-struck regions would receive 1 billion rubles (US$25.4 million) in emergency aid to rebuild after fire storms that have raged for months, the government said in a statement.
A state of emergency was also declared overnight to yesterday in the Urals city of Tolyatti to the east as fires devoured some 200 hectares of forest nearby, Mayor Anatoly Pushkov was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying.
Temperatures have fallen in Moscow since an unprecedented heatwave this summer, but in recent days they have still topped 40°C in the southern regions.
Forest fires ravaged about 1 million hectares in Russia in recent months, destroying whole villages and leaving more than 50 people dead, according to official tallies. Fires also threatened to engulf several nuclear plants.
An emergency alert was lifted on Aug. 23 in the last of the seven regions affected by the fires.
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so