Around the World briefs
By Associated Press
Portugal declares a state of calamity as wildfires rage out of control
LISBON, Portugal | More than 100 wildfires stretched thousands of firefighters to the limit in northern Portugal on Wednesday, with seven deaths since the worst spate of fires in recent years spread out of control over the weekend.
Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro declared a state of calamity for the hardest-hit areas late on Tuesday, invoking powers to mobilize more firefighters and civil servants. He also called on police investigators to redouble their efforts to find those who started the fires and pledged help for those who have lost their homes or have been evacuated.
“We are well aware that these difficult hours are not over yet,” Montenegro told the nation in a televised address. “We have to continue to give everything we have and ask for help from our partners and friends so that we can reinforce the protection of our people and property.”
The European Copernicus satellite service said that over 37,000 acres had been scorched and a combined 8 miles of fire fronts had been detected as on Tuesday night. It added that an area home to 210,000 people was exposed to the fire risk.
The hot, dry conditions behind the outbreaks in Portugal coincided this week with flooding in central Europe. The European Union said Wednesday that the juxtaposed extreme weather phenomena are proof of a “climate breakdown. “
Spain’s military sent 240 soldiers and vehicles from its emergency response battalions specialized in combating fires to its neighbor.
Four water-dumping planes from France, two from Spain and two from Italy were deployed after answering an appeal to help their fellow EU member. Morocco likewise responded to a request by Portugal with two water-dumping planes that arrived on Wednesday.
“The thick smoke produced by most of these fires is making it very difficult for air units to operate,” said Civil Protection official André Fernandes. “We are still at high risk for forest fires over the next 48 hours.”
Thick grey smoke and the smell of burnt wood reached some 85 kilometers across the border into northwest Spain.
Montenegro made a special call for security forces to pursue both arsonists and any individuals who started a fire out of negligence. Portuguese national police said that they have arrested seven men suspected of having started wildfires in recent days. Authorities have prohibited the use of heavy farming equipment to reduce the risk of inadvertently starting a blaze.
Among the hardest hit areas is the district of Aveiro, south of the northern city of Porto, but several major blazes were also raging out of control in other wooded areas.
Authorities have yet to release figures for property damage or the number of evacuees, but Portuguese state broadcaster RTP has shown charred houses in rural villages and local residents trying to battle flames with buckets of water, hoses, and even large tree branches. Other televised images showed visibility reduced to a few meters as orange smoke enveloped the terrain.
Three firefighters died in their vehicle on Tuesday, while another had succumbed to what authorities called a “sudden illness” while on duty over the weekend. Three civilians have also perished, according to civil protection authorities. Health services have attended to 10 seriously wounded people and another 49 people with minor injuries, Fernandes said.
Portugal was devasted by massive fires in 2017 that killed over 120 people.
Experts link the fires to both climate change and the abandonment of traditional farming and forestry professions that helped keep rural areas clear of underbrush that is now fuel for fires.
Zimbabwe and Namibia will kill scores of elephants to feed people facing drought
HARARE, Zimbabwe | Zimbabwe and Namibia have announced plans to slaughter hundreds of wild elephants and other animals to feed hunger-stricken residents amid severe drought conditions in the southern African countries.
Zimbabwe said Monday it would allow the killing of 200 elephants so that their meat can be distributed among needy communities, while in Namibia the killing of more than 700 wild animals — including 83 elephants — is under way as part of a plan announced three weeks ago.
Tinashe Farawo, a spokesman for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, said permits would be issued in needy communities to hunt elephants and that the agency also would kill some of the overall allotment of 200 animals.
“We will start culling as soon as we have finished issuing out permits,” Farawo said.
The elephants will be taken from an area where the population has become unsustainable, Farawo said. The hunting will take place in areas such as Hwange National Park in the country’s arid west where there has been increasing competition between humans and wildlife for food and water as rising temperatures make the resources more scarce.
Hwange has move than 45,000 elephants, but now has the capacity to sustain only 15,000, Farawo said. The country’s overall population of about 100,000 elephants is double what the country’s national parks can sustain, park officials say.
The El Nino weather phenomenon has worsened the situation, with the parks agency in December saying that more than 100 elephants died due to drought. More animals could die of thirst and hunger in the coming weeks as the country enters the hottest period of the year, Farawo said.
Zimbabwe’s Environment Minister Sithembiso Nyoni told Parliament last week that she had given the go-ahead for the culling program.
“Indeed Zimbabwe has more elephants than we need, more elephants than our forestry can accommodate,” Nyoni said.
She said the government was preparing “to do like what Namibia has done so that we can cull the elephants and mobilize the women to dry the meat, package it and ensure that it gets to some communities that need the protein.”
The Namibian government last month approved the culling of 723 animals, including 83 elephants, 30 hippos, 60 buffalos, 50 impalas, 300 zebras and 100 elands, among others.
The animals will be sourced from five of Namibia’s national parks, where it is also looking to reduce its elephant numbers amid conflicts between people and wildlife.
“This is necessary and is in line with our constitutional mandate where our natural resources are used for the benefit of Namibian citizens,” environment department spokesman Romeo Muyunda said. “This is also a prime example that conservation of game is really beneficial.”
Botswana, which is between Zimbabwe and Namibia, has the world’s largest elephant population at 130,000, but unlike its two neighboring countries, it has not talked about slaughtering its elephants to feed its people.
Guyo Roba, a food security and agricultural expert with the Kenya-based environmental think tank Jameel Observatory, said government measures in Zimbabwe and Namibia were understandable given the extent of the drought and the state of their animal populations.
“They are working against a wildlife population that is above their carrying capacity,” Roba said.
“So it may seem controversial initially, but the governments are torn between remaining faithful to some of their obligations at an international level in terms of conservation and supporting the population,” Roba said.
Casualties in Myanmar push Southeast Asia’s death toll
from Typhoon Yagi past 500
BANGKOK | Floods and landslides in Myanmar triggered by last week’s Typhoon Yagi and seasonal monsoon rains have claimed at least 226 lives, with 77 people missing, state-run media reported Tuesday. The new figures push the total number of dead in Southeast Asia from the storm past 500.
The accounting of casualties has been slow, in part due to communication difficulties with the affected areas. Myanmar is wracked by a civil war that began in 2021 after the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Independent analysts believe the ruling military controls much less than half of the country’s territory.
Typhoon Yagi earlier hit Vietnam, northern Thailand and Laos, killing almost 300 people in Vietnam, 42 in Thailand and four in Laos, according to the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance. It said 21 people were killed in the Philippines, with another 26 missing.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said on Monday that an estimated 631,000 people may have been affected by flooding across Myanmar. There were already 3.4 million displaced people in Myanmar at the beginning of September, according to the U.N. refugee agency, mostly because of war and unrest in recent years.
Heavy rains from the typhoon and the seasonal monsoon brought widespread flash floods to Myanmar, especially the central regions of Mandalay, Magway, Bago and the Ayeyarwaddy Delta; the eastern states Shan, Kayah, Kayin and Mon; and the country’s capital, Naypyitaw.
Some flooded areas have started to see water levels recede but others in the Shan and Kayah states remain critical.
More than 160,000 houses have been damaged and 438 temporary relief camps have been opened for more than 160,000 flood victims, Myanma Alinn reported. The military government announced that nearly 240,000 people have been displaced.
Myanma Alinn said 117 government offices and buildings, 1,040 schools, 386 religious buildings, roads, bridges, power towers, and telecom towers were damaged by the floods in 56 townships.
It also said nearly 130,000 animals were killed and more than 259,000 hectares (640,000 acres) of agricultural land were damaged by the floods.
The U.N.’s humanitarian affairs agency said food, drinking water, medicine, clothes, dignity kits, and shelters are urgent needs for the flood victims but alleviation efforts are hampered by blocked roads, damaged bridges and ongoing armed clashes.
Vice Senior Gen. Soe Win, the second-ranking member of Myanmar’s ruling military council, said the country had received relief aid from other countries, and some humanitarian assistance from the Association of Southeast Asia, will arrive soon.
Soe Win, speaking at a meeting of the National Disaster Management Committee on Monday, said that the extent of flooding in the capital was unprecedented, and cleaning and rehabilitation activities in the flooded areas began Thursday as the water level declined.
Myanmar experiences extreme weather during the monsoon virtually every year. In 2008, Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 people around the Irrawaddy River delta. The then-military government was harshly discredited when it delayed acceptance of outside aid.
Google says it will rethink its plans for a big data center in Chile over water worries
SANTIAGO, Chile | Google on Tuesday said it would halt plans to develop a major $200 million data center in Chile to address environmental concerns, a decision reflecting growing worries about the impact of power-thirsty projects around the world.
The U.S. technology company first obtained permits in 2020 to construct the vast project in Chile’s capital, Santiago, as demand for the server farms skyrocketed across the globe, fueled by a surge in cloud-based technologies and a craze for generative AI.
But months after a Chilean court partially reversed the center’s authorization over water usage concerns, Google announced Tuesday that it would revise the project to comply with more stringent environmental requirements and change its water-intensive cooling system.
“A new process will start from scratch,” Google said in its statement. “Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do, and the way we design and manage our data centers is no exception.”
Community complaints in the drought-stricken South American nation over the air-conditioned computer farm’s energy and water usage sharpened government scrutiny and prompted a local court to temporarily revoke the project’s authorization in February.
The Santiago environmental court asked Google to respond to concerns that the data center could affect Santiago’s main aquifer.
The court said it was highly possible that cooling the heavy equipment — which creates the online storage for the data of millions — could pull from Chile’s water resources. The country is experiencing a crippling drought supercharged by climate change, a source of outrage among locals and Indigenous groups.
Google didn’t provide an updated timeline for the project and said that it would keep the location the same. It said developers had already notified Chile’s environmental regulator of the company’s decision to pause its permit application process and rethink its strategy.
—From AP reports
