Four people were injured, one of them seriously, when an explosion ripped through an apartment in northwestern Switzerland on Tuesday, regional police said. Georges-Andre Lozouet, spokesman for the Neuchatel police, said the explosion took place around noon i…
A Russian Tu-95 military aircraft crashed during a training flight in the far eastern Amur region on September 29, killing six crew members and injuring one, Russia's defence ministry said, according to the state TASS news agency. The ministry said the aircra…
French authorities have declared the Saumos wildfire extinguished, two months after the blaze broke out in southwest France and became the country's largest recorded wildfire since 1949. State services said on September 28 that the fire burned 42,000 hectares…
Two Philippine nationals were killed on Sunday when a coach carrying tourists to Oktoberfest overturned on a motorway in southern Germany, police said. Eight others were seriously injured in the crash, which occurred around 0400 GMT. The coach had been charte…
Floods and landslides triggered by heavy rain have killed at least 68 people over three days in northern India and Nepal, disaster authorities said on Sunday. In India's Uttar Pradesh state, the Relief Commissioner's office said 56 people died over the past t…
Bangkok floods forced nearly 4,900 people into shelters after more than 330 millimetres of rain fell in parts of the Thai capital from Thursday to Sunday, city authorities said. The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration said around 52,000 households were affect…
Heavy rain triggered floods and landslides in India's Uttar Pradesh state, killing at least 56 people over three days, the state Relief Commissioner's office said on Sunday. The office said more than 1,000 houses were damaged after a depression over the Bay o…
Seventeen people were killed when a small plane carrying military justice officials crashed near Kenge in southwest Democratic Republic of Congo, the transport ministry said. The ministry said the Let 410 UVP light aircraft, operated by Tracep Congo Aviation,…
A powerful Nor'easter battered the northeastern United States on Saturday, cancelling hundreds of flights, cutting power to tens of thousands of customers and raising warnings of major coastal flooding. The National Weather Service said the storm was expected…
The death toll from the Virgo Transport 8 ferry sinking in Indonesia's Java Sea has risen to 64, National Search and Rescue Agency official Yudhi Bramantyo said Saturday, with 71 people still being searched for. Yudhi said the ferry was carrying 213 passenger…
Wildfires in Indonesian Borneo are adding pressure on critically endangered Bornean orangutans, with fires burning inside habitats containing 52 percent of the species' population, the International Union for Conservation of Nature said Saturday. The IUCN sai…
Actress Hayden Panettiere died from the toxic effects of fentanyl combined with other drugs, the Greenville County Coroner's Office said Tuesday. The coroner's office said an autopsy found no signs of trauma and classified the 36-year-old's death as an accide…
A US F-16 fighter jet crashed Tuesday at Spangdahlem Air Base in western Germany, and the pilot was injured after ejecting, the US Air Force and local authorities said. The F-16 Fighting Falcon went down at about 2:30 pm local time at the base in Rhineland-Pa…
Hurricane Polo reached Category 5 strength off Mexico's Pacific coast on Tuesday, with maximum sustained winds of 160 mph, or 260 kph, the US National Hurricane Center said. The storm intensified from Category 4 as it swirled off southwest Mexico. The NHC sai…
Firefighters in Colombia had brought 75 percent of a wildfire threatening Villa de Leyva under control, Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara said Monday, after flames forced evacuations near the colonial tourist town. Lara said a few hotspots remained and were bein…
Indonesia recorded 174,694 cases of acute respiratory infections between August and September 21 in areas affected by forest and land fires, health ministry official Then Suyanti said Tuesday. Then said more than 40,000 of the recorded cases affected toddlers…
Two people were confirmed dead after heavy rain from Typhoon Dujuan triggered landslides near Tokyo, local governments reported according to Japanese media, as more than one million people remained under evacuation advisories early Tuesday. The deaths were re…
Three South Korean military officers were injured in an explosion during an operation inside the Demilitarized Zone near the border with North Korea, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday. The JCS said the blast happened at a location south of the M…
At least four people were injured after a series of explosions at an ammunition depot at an army site near Aleppo in northern Syria early Monday, Syrian state media reported. State news agency SANA said the explosions occurred near the town of Al-Eis. The cau…
A forest fire near Villa de Leyva, a tourist town in Colombia's central Andes, had affected more than 200 hectares by Sunday afternoon, local official Jose Castro said, as authorities declared a state of public calamity and suspended classes in local schools…
A gold mine collapse in northern Sudan killed at least 10 people and injured 21 others, two survivors said Sunday after overnight rescue efforts. The shafts collapsed Saturday in the Awny mining area near Sudan's border with Egypt. One survivor who was workin…
Firefighters in Ecuador, backed by four helicopters, battled a wildfire on Casitagua hill overlooking Quito on Friday after nearly 50 people were evacuated as a precaution. Captain Pablo Andino of the Quito Fire Department said about 100 firefighters were try…
A drone hit the cooling tower of a reactor unit at Russia's Kursk nuclear power plant early on Thursday, but caused no fire, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Friday. The UN nuclear watchdog said it had been informed of the strike at the plant, w…
A wildfire in Quito forced 48 people to leave as a precaution while firefighters fought flames on Casitagua, a peak in the north of Ecuador's capital, city authorities said Friday. Authorities said strong winds and dry vegetation after a lack of rain helped s…
A shark killed a male swimmer off Sorrento Beach near Perth in Western Australia on Friday, police said, in Australia's fifth fatal shark attack this year. A Western Australia state police spokeswoman said the man had been bitten while swimming along the coas…
Nigeria has suspended a civil defence commander and ordered an investigation after 37 suspected illegal gold miners died in custody in Niger state, as a survivor said detainees were packed into an unventilated cell and struggled to breathe. Dauda Shehu told j…
An official inquiry has found that a fire that killed 14 infants at a maternity ward in Pakistan's capital followed “systemic and institutional failure” at the hospital. The dawn blaze broke out on August 26 on the third floor of the Mother and Child Health W…
Spanish rescuers recovered the body of a man near Barcelona after torrential rain hit Spain's Mediterranean east, flooding streets and disrupting travel. Catalan firefighters said they had located the man's body in Olivella, about 40 kilometres west of Barcel…
A gold mine collapse in southern Sudan killed at least 82 people and injured dozens more, a local administrator in West Kordofan said Wednesday, with an unknown number still trapped under sand and rubble. Two survivors said an all-night rescue effort began Tu…
Critically endangered Sumatran elephants are being pushed closer to the brink as wildfires burn large areas of their habitat on Indonesia's Sumatra island, conservation group Geopix said on Wednesday. Geopix said in a report published Tuesday that more than 4…
Three people were killed Tuesday when an NBC4 news helicopter crashed in Los Angeles while covering a deadly bus crash, and the station identified two of the victims as reporter Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marciniw. The helicopter came down just before 7:0…
A powerful El Nino weather pattern is worsening drought, crop losses and hunger across parts of Central America, where farmers and residents described dead livestock, empty fields and rising food prices. The affected Central American Dry Corridor includes par…
A surfer in his fifties was in serious but stable condition after being bitten by a shark at Glenfield Beach in Western Australia on Monday, ABC reported, citing local health authorities. The state government and local ambulance service said the man was rushe…
Nepali hydropower worker Sanjay Sah has described surviving for 10 days in darkness inside a flooded tunnel after the August 26 disaster on the China-Nepal border. Sah, 30, told AFP he drank muddy water and lost all sense of time before a disaster response te…
Indonesian rescuers brought 22 survivors ashore in Banjarmasin on Tuesday after bad weather delayed their evacuation from the Virgo Transport 8 ferry capsizing, while 129 people remained missing, the national search and rescue agency Basarnas said. Basarnas s…
One person is dead and more than 30 people are missing after the MV Matui ferry sank off Vanuatu, Prime Minister Jotham Napat's office said on Sunday. The vessel had left Santo on Friday for Ambae island with more than 40 passengers and crew in very rough sea…
State television said at least seven prisoners died and dozens were injured after inmates started a fire during a riot at Kobane prison in northern Syria. The broadcaster said the blaze spread to several dormitories in the Kurdish-majority town. The Syrian Ob…
Bulgarian arms maker EMCO accused authorities of failing to tackle sabotage against defence facilities after explosions and a fire broke out late Friday at one of its ammunition storage sites near the central village of Gorni Varpishta. Police said no casualt…
Tunisia prison deaths linked to extreme heat have reached at least 23 in recent weeks, according to the Tunisian League for Human Rights, as rights advocates warn that overcrowded and poorly ventilated cells are putting detainees at risk. Bassem Trifi, presid…
French investigators suspect sabotage may have caused a train derailment in northwestern France that injured 44 people, prosecutors said Saturday, after a large section of rail was found on the track. The train was carrying 186 passengers between Rouen and Ca…
Five people were killed and 40 others injured when a coach carrying Dutch tourists crashed in eastern Switzerland, police said Friday. The accident happened at 4:45 p.m. Thursday between Susch and Zernez in the canton of Graubunden. Graubunden police said the…
UNICEF said at least 26 children died and 25 were injured after a fire and stampede at Ujamaa primary school in Bukavu, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The blaze began on Thursday at about 9:00 a.m. while children were in lessons. Simon Kasamira, a t…
Six orangutans, including two nursing infants, have been rescued from fires on Borneo in the past week, Indonesian authorities and rescuers said Thursday, bringing the total to 15 in a month. The apes were saved from plantations in rural West Kalimantan provi…
Chinese investigators had not determined the cause of a fire that killed 25 people on a foreign-flagged cargo ship moored in Qingdao, state broadcaster CCTV said Friday. CCTV said the bulk carrier had 42 people on board when the fire broke out at about 11:15…
A landslide partially buried three vehicles in a Mount Fuji car park as heavy rain, powerful gusts and dense mist affected the end of the Japanese volcano's summer climbing season. Hisayuki Motohashi, a road maintenance official for the Shizuoka regional gove…
The death toll from a Philippine ferry fire rose to 76 on Saturday after the coast guard confirmed the discovery of 41 more bodies aboard the burnt-out M/V June Aster, as authorities began the process of identifying victims. The ferry caught fire Wednesday an…
Iranian state media reported on Wednesday that an explosion was heard in southern Iran near Hormuz. No cause, damage or casualties were confirmed in the supplied information.
Roma said they will wear jerseys supporting relief efforts in Nepal during this week's Champions League match against Fenerbahce in Istanbul. The Italian club said its players will wear shirts with the World Food Programme logo and the message “Together for N…
Two workers were killed on Wednesday, September 9, in an explosion at the Ritom hydroelectric power plant in Piotta, southern Switzerland, police in Ticino said. Police described the incident as a serious workplace accident. It happened shortly after 9:30 am,…
A train carrying about 120 passengers collided with a cement truck and derailed in Sokolniki Suche in east-central Poland, killing one person and injuring 20, authorities said Wednesday. Karolina Jaworska, a press officer for the Mazowian region police, said…
An explosion at an arms depot in northwest Syria killed 14 people and injured 11 others on Wednesday, the Idlib health department said. The department said the blast happened at a temporary storage site for collecting weapons and war remnants near the city of…
Indonesian rescuers searched waters and islands around Anak Krakatau on Wednesday for a missing speedboat carrying eight people, including five journalists who had been sent to cover the volcano's eruption. The group left an area west of Jakarta on Monday aft…
A helicopter operated by Malaysia's Flying Doctor Service crashed at a remote airfield in inland Sarawak, killing all five people on board, Malaysian authorities said Wednesday. The BO-105 helicopter went down on Tuesday afternoon about 315 kilometres southea…
Hundreds of Asian Games athletes were briefly evacuated from accommodation in Nagoya after record rain hit the Japanese host city, where rainwater also leaked into some competition venues. About 104mm of rain fell in one hour on Tuesday, prompting municipal o…
Malibu officials ordered evacuations affecting dozens of homes after a large sinkhole opened on the driveway of a beachfront home belonging to US actor Nicolas Cage. The hole appeared Tuesday as heavy surf from the after-effects of a hurricane struck the Sout…
Indonesian rescuers resumed the search on Wednesday for a missing speedboat carrying eight people, including five journalists sent to cover the eruption of Mou…
Landslides in eastern China have killed 13 people and left three others missing, Chinese state media said Tuesday, days after heavy rain brought by Typhoon Saudel. Xinhua, citing local officials, said a mudslide that hit Mingkeng village in Jiangxi province o…
Jakarta's main airport and four other air travel hubs reopened early Tuesday after days of closure caused by ash from Mount Anak Krakatau, Indonesia's Transpor…
An avalanche on Mount Mizhirgi in southern Russia killed 11 climbers and left six others missing, Russia's emergency ministry said Monday. Rescuers received r…
Britain's finance minister John Healey is expected to set out UK growth plans on September 7, including less government red tape and a new £150-million fund for business innovation in northern England. The speech will come before Prime Minister Andy Burnham's…
Wildfire smoke and heatwaves risk weakening global progress on cleaner air and public health, the World Meteorological Organization said in its latest annual Air Quality and Climate Bulletin. The United Nations weather and climate agency said air pollution an…
A fire at a wedding party in Kinshasa killed 12 people, the Democratic Republic of Congo government said on Sunday. The communications ministry said work was continuing to identify the victims after the fire broke out overnight from September 4 to 5 in the ca…
An Amazon-contracted cargo plane tried to abort its landing before it overran a runway at Miami International Airport, tore through a perimeter fence and struck vehicles in a crash that killed five people, US investigators said. NTSB investigator Chihoon Shin…
A fireworks blast involving material stored inside a church killed at least 10 people and injured more than 60 during a village festival in Santa Maria Canchesda, central Mexico, the local government said. The explosion happened on Saturday night as people ga…
The World Food Programme's Nepal chief said aid operations after the August 26 China-Nepal border flood are among the agency's toughest, as helicopters and cargo drones carry food to communities cut off by destroyed roads and bridges. Riaz Lodhi, head of WFP…
The death toll from a five-storey building collapse in New Delhi has risen to seven, and rescue operations have ended, officials said Monday. The building cra…
Four men died of gas asphyxiation while extracting coal at a mine in northeastern Afghanistan, the information department of Baghlan province said Sunday. Sayed Mustafa Hashimi, the department head, said the accident happened at a mine in Tala Wa Barfak that…
Indonesia's wildfires have kept about 200,000 pupils in West Kalimantan studying from home and are straining health services as haze from burning peatland and…
Cape Verde's government announced two days of mourning on Sunday after 25 people, mostly children and teenagers, were killed in a bus crash on Fogo Island. Officials said the bus veered off the road and plunged into a deep ravine late on Saturday after an exc…
The bodies of two French fishermen missing since their trawler sank in the Channel have been found, prosecutors said Saturday. The Maranello trawler sent a di…
Rescuers in Algeria recovered the body of a 10-year-old boy on Saturday after he was trapped for four days in an 80-metre-deep well, civil protection authoriti…
Indonesian authorities carried out aerial water drops on Saturday to stop wildfires spreading in Nusantara, the country's planned new capital in Borneo, Nusantara authority official Myrna Asnawati Safitri told AFP. Safitri, the authority's environment and nat…
Greek news agency ANA reported that two pilots were killed Saturday when an F-4 Phantom military aircraft crashed at a base outside Athens during the annual Athens Flying Week airshow. The circumstances of the crash were unclear. Local media said the pilots d…
Rescuers pulled 64-year-old Chandrika Shrestha alive from her mud-buried home in Nepal's Nuwakot district on Saturday, 10 days after flooding struck the China-Nepal border region. Members of Nepal's Armed Police Force cheered as Shrestha, covered in mud, was…
An orangutan mother and her baby were rescued in Indonesia's West Kalimantan province after wildfire spread near their habitat, conservation authorities said Saturday. The pair had been under observation since July after being spotted in a plantation area nea…
Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz has asked prosecutors to investigate whether two explosions at an army barracks in Viacha were a “possible attack” on his government, after the blasts killed at least nine soldiers and wounded 84 more people. The explosions happ…
Guinea held a mass funeral Friday for 36 people killed when part of a landfill collapsed in a suburb of Conakry after heavy rains. Authorities announced the u…
Hurricane Lowell left 91 percent of Kauai Island Utility Cooperative customers without power as it lashed Hawaii’s western islands with damaging winds, heavy r…
Wildfires burned about 540,000 hectares across the European Union from June 18 to September 2, after more than 1,000 fires over the summer, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System. The burned area was more than twice the size of Lux…
Rajendra Dawadi, principal of Trishuli Bazaar Secondary School near Nepal's Trishuli River, said an urgent warning on the morning of August 26 allowed teachers…
At least 1,384 people have been killed and more than 5,500 are missing after the August 26 flood on the China-Nepal border, as the United Nations chief in Nepal urged international aid for devastated mountain communities. UN Resident Coordinator Lila Pieters…
Indonesia's wildfire haze has directly exposed more than five million people across Borneo and Sumatra to health risks, deputy health minister Dante Saksono Harbuwono said, as smoke from weeks of fires spread to Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. Most o…
The head of the Tunisian League for Human Rights said 20 prisoners have died in detention in Tunisia in recent weeks because of extreme heat, a figure authorities have not confirmed. Bassem Trifi, the group’s president, told Express FM on Sept. 3 that the org…
Nigerian authorities and Indorama have challenged a local NGO's claim that 37 people died after inhaling fumes during suspected fuel theft from a pipeline in Rivers State in Nigeria's Niger Delta. The Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre, known as YEAC-Ni…
The August 26 flood disaster on the China-Nepal border has killed at least 1,385 people and left more than 5,500 missing, as rescue teams continue searches in Himalayan hydropower tunnels. Hundreds of hydropower workers are among those missing, and rescue eff…
The death toll from floods and mudslides after an August 26 glacial and mountain collapse on the China-Nepal border has risen to at least 1,318, with 5,614 people missing, based on figures from Nepal's disaster authority and Chinese state media. Chinese state…
Turkey's navy has located the wreckage of a cargo ship that sank off Istanbul after colliding with an empty oil tanker, while 10 crew members remain missing, officials said Saturday. The Tugberk Imamoglu, a cargo vessel carrying rolled steel, sank after a pre…
Authorities in eastern China's Fujian province closed schools and suspended ferry routes on Thursday after forecasters warned of heavy rain from Typhoon Saudel…
Swiss pilgrim Natalia Rjumin-Girardet said a small concrete staircase saved her group from Nepal's deadly August 26 flash flood as a wave of water and mud swep…
Chinese state media said the death toll in Tibet from the Himalayan floods along the China-Nepal border has risen to 43, with 519 people missing, bringing the disaster's reported overall toll to nearly 1,400 dead and more than 5,500 missing across the two cou…
Azerbaijani authorities evacuated 5,000 people after a fire triggered explosions at an ammunition depot near Nizami village in the western Goranboy district ov…
A Turkish cargo ship sank in the Marmara Sea near Istanbul after colliding with an empty oil tanker before dawn Wednesday, and rescuers were searching for its…
A passenger bus overturned on a desert highway in Egypt's eastern Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday, killing 22 people and injuring 28 others, authorities said. Th…
Nepal Police said about 1,030 bodies have been buried in mass graves after DNA samples were taken, as rescuers continued searching for survivors from the flood…
Syrian authorities said at least five people were killed Tuesday when a vehicle carrying munitions exploded in Binnish, in northwest Idlib province. A security source told state news agency SANA that the vehicle exploded in the city of Binnish, but did not sa…
A Philippine couple married on Tuesday in hip-deep floodwater inside a Catholic church in Hagonoy, north of Manila, after heavy rains flooded the parish for nearly a month. Leian Lieza Galang and Gilbert Chico, both in their 30s, went ahead with an abbreviate…
Malaysia has ended a local haze emergency in Sarawak state on Borneo, but the government warned that air pollution in several areas remains very unhealthy. The prime minister's office said King Sultan Ibrahim approved the end of the emergency on Monday. The o…
Exiled Tibetans and advocacy groups accused China of underreporting the death toll from floods in Tibet border regions with Nepal, while Beijing rejected the claims as "malicious smearing and sensationalism". Chinese state media reported 16 deaths and 546 mis…
Women displaced by Nepal's August 26 flash floods say inadequate toilets, little water and gaps in basic supplies are creating sanitation and menstrual hygiene problems at a school relief camp in Nuwakot district. Thousands of people are living in temporary c…
China's Olympic tennis champion Zheng Qinwen has donated one million yuan, about $150,000, to relief efforts after deadly flash floods and landslides on the Ch…
Nepal’s disaster authority said the flood death toll had risen to 1,259 people, with 5,083 missing after the August 26 Himalayan disaster. The updated figures raised the previously reported Nepal toll of 1,252 dead and 4,216 missing. Chinese state media had s…