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Operations suspended amid fears of further destruction; 1,500 people still missing amid race to find survivors
More now on the Nepali army’s rescue operation to save about 100 people trapped in a tunnel at a hydropower project swamped by Wednesday’s flooding.
“Two helicopters have been dispatched but it is challenging because it is tough to even locate the entry points of the tunnel,” army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet told AFP.
Relief efforts are also under way to provide the rescued people what they need.
The army is still working to safely evacuate more than 100 people trapped in the same tunnel.
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Problems including derailments have hit network during one of the hottest and driest summers on record
Britain’s railways have faced a string of heat-related problems this summer, including a derailment near Lewes in East Sussex two weeks ago that injured 30 people, and another the next day when the rear carriages of a Greater Anglia train derailed “in an upright position” at Wickford railway station in Essex, with no reported injuries.
The problems came during one of the hottest and driest summers on record, with a series of heatwaves, and drought declared across large parts of England and Wales. Britain’s railways, built for a cooler, wetter climate, have been put under pressure. Network Rail said the summer had “presented exceptional challenges to the railway”.
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‘Godzilla’ event currently brewing could push 50 million people into acute hunger before the end of next year
A series of strong El Niño climatic patterns in recent decades, such as the “Godzilla” event currently brewing that is set to warp weather around the world, have been supercharged by the broader overheating of the planet caused by the burning of fossil fuels, a major new study has found.
El Niño is a naturally occurring phenomenon, taking place every two to seven years, when the waters of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean heat up, causing a cascade of impacts around the world. The latest developing El Niño, set to peak later this year, is set to be the strongest in living memory and has been informally dubbed a “Godzilla” event.
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Woolston Eyes in Warrington, a dumping ground for canal dredgings, has become best place in UK for black-necked grebe
A dumping ground for dredgings from the Manchester Ship Canal has become the best place in Britain for the rare and beautiful black-necked grebe, hosting 64% of Britain’s breeding population.
Since 2021, Woolston Eyes in Cheshire has been restored, extended and turned into a mosaic of freshwater pools, reedbeds, willow scrub and rough grassland, managed by the RSPB and Woolston Eyes Conservation Group.
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In this week’s newsletter: pollutants from fossil fuels and wildfires damage nearly every part of our bodies – but initiatives such as cycle zones can make our cities safer
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Air pollution affects nearly every person on this planet. Yet global efforts to combat the scourge – which is associated with about 8 million premature deaths worldwide every year, can damage nearly every part of our body and is linked to everything from miscarriages to dementia – lag decades behind our knowledge of its impacts.
Tens of millions of people in Indonesia are now suffering in swathes of thick smoke caused by “slash and burn” agriculture and exacerbated by the hot conditions. In India, ground-level ozone from vehicle fumes and industry has emerged as the key summer threat, while outside its megacities there have been protests in areas affected by toxic coal dust. Across the northern hemisphere this summer, wildfires driven by the climate crisis have spread poor air across continents – already, 1.5 million people globally die every year from the impacts of wildfire smoke.
Nearly 1,400 missing, mostly tourists, after Nepal-Tibet flash flood kills at least 270
Two planned datacentres will have higher UK carbon emissions than ExxonMobil, analysis finds
‘Environmental violence’: inside the fight to save indigenous land from becoming a nuclear dumping ground
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Tunstall Valley, Weardale: Called chicken of the woods, it is reducing this oak tree to dust, molecule by molecule
A sultry afternoon, with hardly a breath of wind. A few clouds, barely moving, are perfectly reflected in Tunstall reservoir’s mirror-smooth surface, only disturbed by the wake of a flotilla of mallards. From here, high on the dam wall, there’s a fine view down this secluded valley’s patchwork of recently cut hay meadows, sun-bleached and yet to regreen through lack of rain.
We are heading for the shade of Backstone Bank: ancient oak woodland that clings to the steep eastern flank of the reservoir. When we were here in May it was alive with sounds of newly arrived blackcaps, cuckoos and pied flycatchers; today there’s a listless, uncanny silence, only broken by the rustle of falling leaves, prematurely shed by drought-stressed trees. On the woodland floor, enchanter’s nightshade, limp-leaved, has raced through flowering; its burred seeds are hooked into our socks.
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This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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From humpbacks learning the latest songs to sperm whales’ ‘clan codas’, drones and AI learning are helping reveal another dimension to the concept of culture
In 2015, the whale researcher Valeria Vergara pitched a small tent at the icy water’s edge on Somerset Island in the remote Canadian high Arctic, shrouded in a freezing fog so thick she struggled to see her own hands. She trailed a cord out to the coast and plopped a hydrophone into the water to record the calls of belugas.
As many as 1,000 of the whales, accompanied by their newborn calves, frequented the surrounding bay. Belugas’ ceaseless chatter, made up of dozens of unique sounds, is crucial to keeping these creatures connected in the dim, turbid waters of the Arctic.
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Horticulturalists begin moving and propagating plants before the rusty and warped Palm House begins renovation – but some are too tall to save
It will be a gut-wrenching moment for the horticulturalists at Kew Gardens when some of the magnificent trees in the Palm House have to be felled.
“There are some sad moments ahead,” said Palm House manager, Will Spoelstra, who knows all the plants inside the cathedral-like greenhouse.
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Steel rails warping and signalling equipment failing in metal cabinets are among the problems to be solved
Tarmac softens in the summer heat, which may cause problems on the roads, but even trains running on steel rails are not immune.
Railways in the UK are generally designed to operate within a 45C temperature range. The rails expand slightly in the heat, and excessive temperatures can produce “sun kink” with rails warping into S-shapes. The effect is small but the distortion can derail fast trains, so speeds are reduced for safety.
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