Wildfires force evacuation of visitors and staff at 2 national parks in US West
Gunnison National Park, about 260 miles (418 kilometers) southwest of Denver, closed Thursday morning after lighting sparked blazes on both the North Rim and South Rim of the Black Canyon, the park said. The wildfire has burned 2.5 square miles (6.5 square kilometers), with no containment of the perimeter.
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Four dead and eight missing after torrential rain causes landslide in northern China
Four people died and eight were missing after a landslide triggered by heavy rainfall struck Luanping in northern China's Hebei province, CCTV reported on Monday. Rescue efforts were underway, the state broadcaster said. The landslide followed an intense overnight downpour in Fuping, a county in the industrial city of Baoding, where rainfall reached a record 145mm per hour. Torrential rainfall intensified across Beijing and surrounding provinces in northern China on Monday, heightening the threat of floods and landslides and prompting the evacuation of over 4,400 residents, authorities said. Last week, Typhoon Wipha wreaked havoc across China, killing dozens of people, uprooting trees, causing landslides, and leaving thousands without power. Wipha battered cities such as Yangjiang, Zhanjiang and Maoming with winds of over 118kmph and torrential rain before making landfall in southern Guangdong province last Sunday. In Beijing's Miyun district, relentless downpours triggered flash floods, impacting several villages, CCTV said on Monday. Images shared on China's WeChat platform showed vehicles drifting along submerged roads, with floodwaters rising high enough to partially engulf residential buildings. Hebei is facing some of its heaviest and most devastating rainfall in recent years, setting off deadly landslides, flash floods, and large-scale evacuations. Relentless rains began sweeping through Hebei, Tianjin, and Shanxi in northern China in early July, triggering widespread flood warnings. But it is the latter half of the month that has seen the worst of the deluge. Power outages have impacted over 10,000 residents in the region, according to CCTV. Northern China in general has faced unprecedented rainfall in recent years, placing densely populated areas like Beijing at heightened risk of flooding. Some researchers attribute this surge in rainfall, especially in the typically arid north, to the effects of global warming. The recent storms form part of a broader pattern of extreme weather events linked to the East Asian monsoon, which continues to disrupt daily life and economic activity across the world's second-largest economy. Among the hardest hit areas from the latest rainfall was Xiwanzi Village in Shicheng town, near the Miyun reservoir, where authorities relocated more than 100 villagers to a local primary school for shelter, authorities said on Monday. Authorities in Beijing reported the Miyun reservoir had reached an unprecedented inflow peak of 6,550 cubic metres per second, the highest on record. Meanwhile, the neighbouring province of Shanxi experienced severe flooding, with state media footage showing powerful torrents sweeping across roads and submerging fields, trees and crops. In Beijing's Pinggu district, two sections of a road deemed high-risk were closed off as a precaution. Emergency crews have been deployed in several cities for rescue operations, including in Datong, where contact was lost with a motorist caught in the floods while driving a Ford, according to the People's Daily. China's water resources ministry has issued targeted flood alerts for 11 provinces and regions, among them Beijing and Hebei, warning of the potential for flash floods from smaller rivers and mountainous runoff. In response to the crisis, authorities have announced an emergency relief fund to assist Hebei with infrastructure repairs. The money will go towards rebuilding damaged roads, bridges, embankments, and public facilities like schools and hospitals. In July last year, China's seasonal 'plum rains' – so named for their timing with the ripening of plums – inflicted over $10bn in economic damage.
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
Deadly wildfires force thousands to evacuate in Turkey and Greece
Deadly wildfires continue to burn in northwestern Turkey, forcing thousands to flee and prompting water restrictions at resorts on the Mediterranean. Turkey has been battling blazes for weeks but high winds and soaring temperatures — which hit a record 122.9 degrees on Friday, local media reported, citing the Turkish State Meteorological Service — have hampered firefighters. The fires have killed at least 17 people in recent weeks. 'We are going through risky days,' Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli told reporters on Sunday. 'This is not something that will stop in two days or three days.' Turkey was 'waging a major battle both in the air and on the ground against forest fires,' President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the same day in an online statement. More than 3,000 fires had been extinguished across the country since the start of summer, he said. The worst blazes were near Bursa — the country's fourth-largest city, about 100 miles by car from Istanbul — where 2,300 firefighters were deployed on Sunday, Yumakli said. Firefighters worked overnight as the blaze crept along the ridgelines of the hilly terrain outside the city of roughly 3 million people. Orhan Saribal, an opposition member of parliament representing Bursa, described the scene as 'an apocalypse' as he spoke to a local TV station against the backdrop of a burning forest on Saturday night. By Sunday, the number of active fires had dropped from 84 to 44, including some blazes in northern and southern Turkey, Yumakli said. More than 3,000 people had been evacuated. Wildfires also burned over the weekend in Bulgaria, Albania, Montenegro and Greece, where explosions could be heard in villages near Athens as blazes reached factories with flammable material, Reuters reported. Residents of at least one suburb of the Greek capital received alerts to evacuate. Southern Europe has been bit by heat waves this summer that have depleted water reservoirs and turned forests into tinderboxes. In the resort town of Cesme on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, officials have implemented overnight water cuts as supplies run low, according to local media. The fires in Turkey have killed at least 17 people in recent weeks, including 10 rescue volunteers and forestry workers who died in Eskisehir province last week, according to the Associated Press. Another firefighter died from a heart attack over the weekend, Bursa's mayor said in an online statement. Three people were also killed when a tanker delivering water to firefighters rolled off the road on Sunday, according to local officials. Though wildfires are common in southern Europe this time of year, they are becoming more frequent and intense as the weather gets hotter and drier because of climate change, scientists say. 'The number of days of high or extreme fire danger in southern Europe is already at levels we thought we wouldn't see until 2050,' Jesus San Miguel, a senior researcher at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, told The Washington Post in 2023. 'Because of climate change, we are going much faster than we thought.' Erdogan on Sunday said he prayed for all those 'who became martyrs in the fight against the fires,' adding that the country remained on 'high alert day and night.'
Associated Press
3 hours ago
- Associated Press
Tropical Storm Iona forms in the central Pacific, no threat to Hawaii
MIAMI (AP) — Tropical Storm Iona formed in the central Pacific and is expected to continue trekking toward the west over warm, open waters well south of Hawaii. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Iona emerged Sunday from a tropical depression about 960 miles (1,545 kilometers) southeast of Honolulu. The storm is expected to strengthen further in coming days but currently poses no threat to Hawaii. No coastal watches or warnings are in effect. The system gained tropical storm status with maximum sustained winds of about 40 mph (64 kph). It was moving in a generally westward direction at about 10 mph (16 kph). Iona is the first named storm of the hurricane season in the central Pacific.
