Thousands of residents and holiday makers have been told to evacuate a swathe of Victoria as soaring temperatures and strong winds fan massive bushfires in the Australian state.
A petition to cancel Sydney's famous New Year's Eve fireworks and use the money to fight bush fires ringing the city has topped 260,000 signatures, but officials say the show will go on.
The government of the wine-producing province of Mendoza, suspended the rule of the mining law 7.722 that had given the green light for chemicals such as cyanide and sulfuric acid to be used by the industry, but which threaten the water resources of that territory.
Australian authorities said on Friday that they are focused on protecting water plants, pumping stations, pipes and other infrastructure from intense bushfires surrounding Sydney, the country's largest city. Firefighters battling the blazes for weeks received a reprieve of slightly cooler, damper conditions over Christmas, but the respite is not expected to last long.
A voracious fire in the Chilean city of Valparaíso began on Tuesday and extended until after Christmas Eve on Wednesday, leaving about 245 homes destroyed, 2000 people without power and a dozen injured. The authorities believe that the fires in the tourist city were intentional.
Two strong earthquakes, of magnitude 6.2 and magnitude 5.7, struck central Colombia on Tuesday, the Colombian Geological Service said, but there were no immediate reports of any injuries or major damage.
A kangaroo has been spotted cooling off in a backyard pool in a bush fire-ravaged region of Australia while elsewhere firefighters have been rescuing koalas from trees threatened by flames.
Firefighters in the Australian state of New South Wales were bracing for catastrophic fire conditions on Saturday as temperatures well above 40 degrees Celsius and strong winds were set to fuel more than 100 fires burning across the state.
A dam owned by iron ore company Vale SA that was the subject of an investigative report by a TV program last week is structurally sound and there is no reason for concern, Brazil’s national mining regulator said this week.
While Prime Minister Scott Morrison is overseas on vacation, Australia this week experienced its hottest day on record and the heat-wave is expected to worsen, exacerbating an already unprecedented bushfire season, authorities said on Wednesday.