logo
Truck carrying chickens crashes outside Christchurch

Truck carrying chickens crashes outside Christchurch

NZ Herald12-05-2025

Zookeeping isn't all butterflies, even at Butterfly Creek! Reporter Evie finds out what it takes to feed the meerkats, otters, and even NZ's only saltwater crocodiles.
The journalist believes the culprit has been identified. Video / Supplied
The Government is making work on restrictions to social media for New Zealanders under the age of 16 part of its official programme. Video / NZ Herald
The Government is making work on restrictions to social media for New Zealanders under the age of 16 part of its official programme. Video / NZ Herald
Ministers Chris Bishop and Mark Mitchell announced new offences and penalties in Rotorua on Sunday, with Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell. Video / Kelly Makiha
India-Pakistan ceasefire falters following explosions in Kashmir, and world leaders urge Russia to accept 30-day ceasefire proposal. Video / NZ Herald, AFP
Ciara-Jordyn Merekara Woods-Ryan has been diagnosed with a rare lung cancer, Pleuropulmonary Blastoma. Video \ Jason Dorday
Deputy CEO of Customs NZ Paul Campbell provides an operations update. Video / NZ Herald
Minister of Customs Casey Costelllo provided an update on customs operations. Video / NZ Herald
Tracy Jarman's life was turned upside down four years ago when she emerged paralysed from her fifth surgery for spinal cysts. Video / Mike Scott
A young Kiwi fan asked Brad Pitt for a favour while in the drive-thru. Video / Supplied
The new pope is celebrated worldwide as Auckland closes it's war memorial museum for asbestos cleaning. Video / NZ Herald
Flooding in Wairau Valley on Auckland's North Shore. Video / Jonathon Edward Powell
MetService Severe Weather Update - Friday 9 May
Protests across NZ today targeted the Government's rollback of pay equity laws. The PSA says it impacts underpaid women in female-led jobs. Video / Jason Dorday, Mike Scott

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Deadly Flooding In Nigeria Displaces Thousands
Deadly Flooding In Nigeria Displaces Thousands

Scoop

time14 hours ago

  • Scoop

Deadly Flooding In Nigeria Displaces Thousands

2 June 2025 Nigerian officials estimate that over 500 people are still missing and presumed dead, according to news reports. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, a former Nigerian Government minister, said she was heartbroken at the extent of the loss and damage. 'My deepest condolences to all those affected – especially the families who have lost loved ones. My prayers are with you,' she said. UN relief operation United Nations agencies and partners are working alongside the Nigerian Government to provide essential humanitarian aid to individuals and households in Niger State who have been affected. Beginning 29 May, heavy rains in the Local Government Area of Mokwa – known as a trading hub – prompted flash flooding which flattened entire neighbourhoods. Hundreds were killed, thousands displaced and key roads and bridges were damaged, disrupting movement and economic activity. Nigeria's rainy season extends from April-October, making it particularly prone to flooding, which has become more severe in recent years. Climate change factor In 2024, a flood in September killed 230 people in Borno state in eastern Nigeria and displaced over 600,000 people. In 2022, severe flooding across the country impacted 34 out of the 36 states, killed hundreds and displaced more than 1.3 million. A recent report from the UN weather agency (WMO) said the worsening severity is related to climate change and increasing surface and water temperatures, all of which is taking a high toll throughout the African continent. Agencies on the ground According to UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric Nigerian authorities are leading recovery efforts and UN agencies and partners are providing supplementary assistance. The World Health Organization (WHO) is preparing to ship medicine and medical equipment to supplement and support existing primary care systems. For their part, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is providing materials for temporary shelter and other non-essential food items. The UN reproductive health agency (UNFPA) is working to establish temporary clinics and safe spaces for women and girls displaced by the flooding. In these spaces, women can access maternal and reproductive health services, dignity kits and psychosocial assistance. UNFPA is also working to deploy midwives and nurses. Mohammed M. Malik Fall, resident and humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria, commended Government efforts to respond to the humanitarian situation in Mokwa and said that the UN 'stands ready to support the response.'

'I lost everything': Swiss residents in shock after glacier debris buries village
'I lost everything': Swiss residents in shock after glacier debris buries village

RNZ News

time4 days ago

  • RNZ News

'I lost everything': Swiss residents in shock after glacier debris buries village

By Dave Graham , Reuters The small village of Blatten and its surroundings in the Bietschhorn mountain of the Swiss Alps, Switzerland on May 29, 2025 after it was destroyed the previous day by a landslide after part of the huge Birch Glacier collapsed and swallowed up by the river Lonza. Photo: AFP/Maxar Technologies Residents struggled to absorb the scale of devastation caused by a huge slab of glacier that buried most of their picturesque Swiss village , in what scientists suspect is a dramatic example of climate change's impact on the Alps. A deluge of millions of cubic metres of ice, mud and rock crashed down a mountain on Wednesday (local time), engulfing the village of Blatten and the few houses that remained were later flooded. Its 300 residents had already been evacuated earlier in May after part of the mountain behind the Birch Glacier began to crumble. Rescue teams with search dogs and thermal drone scans have continued looking for a missing 64-year-old man but have found nothing. Local authorities suspended the search on Thursday afternoon (local time), saying the debris mounds were too unstable for now and warned of further rockfalls. EN IMAGES - Voici l'effondrement du glacier Birch sur le village de Blatten (VS), dans le Lötschental. Il ne reste pratiquement plus rien du village. (RTS) With the Swiss army closely monitoring the situation, flooding worsened during the day as vast mounds of debris almost two kilometres across clogged the path of the River Lonza, causing a huge lake to form amid the wreckage and raising fears that the morass could dislodge. Water levels have been rising by 80 centimetres an hour from the blocked river and melting glacier ice, Stephane Ganzer, head of the security division for the Valais canton, told reporters. Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter is returning early from high-level talks in Ireland and will visit the site on Friday, her office said. "I don't want to talk just now. I lost everything yesterday. I hope you understand," said one middle-aged woman from Blatten, declining to give her name as she sat alone disconsolately in front of a church in the neighbouring village of Wiler. The small village of Blatten, in the Bietschhorn mountain of the Swiss Alps, destroyed by a landslide after part of the huge Birch Glacier collapsed and swallowed up by the river Lonza the day before, in Blatten on May 29, 2025. Photo: AFP/FABRICE COFFRINI Nearby, the road ran along the valley before ending abruptly at the mass of mud and debris now blanketing her own village. A thin cloud of dust hung in the air over the Kleines Nesthorn Mountain where the rockslide occurred while a helicopter buzzed overhead. Werner Bellwald, a 65-year-old cultural studies expert, lost the wooden family house built in 1654 where he lived in Ried, a hamlet next to Blatten also wiped out by the deluge. "You can't tell that there was ever a settlement there," he told Reuters. "Things happened there that no one here thought were possible." The worst scenario would be that a wave of debris bursts the nearby Ferden Dam, Valais canton official Ganzer said. He added that the chances of this further mudslide were currently unlikely, noting that the dam had been emptied as a precaution so it could act as a buffer zone. Local authorities said that the buildings in Blatten which had emerged intact from the landslide are now flooded and that some residents of nearby villages had been evacuated. The army said around 50 personnel as well as water pumps, diggers and other heavy equipment were on standby to provide relief when it was safe. Authorities were airlifting livestock out of the area, said Jonas Jeitziner, a local official in Wiler, as a few sheep scrambled out of a container lowered from a helicopter. Asked how he felt about the future, he said, gazing towards the plain of mud: "Right now, the shock is so profound that one can't think about it yet." The catastrophe has revived concern about the impact of rising temperatures on Alpine permafrost where thawing has loosened some rock structures, creating new mountain hazards. For years, the Birch Glacier has been creeping down the mountainside, pressured by shifting debris near the summit. Matthias Huss, head of Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland, pointed to the likely influence of climate change in loosening the rock mass among the permafrost, which triggered the collapse. "Unexpected things happen at places that we have not seen for hundreds of years, most probably due to climate change," he told Reuters. - Reuters

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store