Environment

IRKUTSK, July 28. /TASS/: The monthly amount of precipitation has fallen in the Russian town of Tulun in the Irkutsk Region in 24 hours, residential buildings and land plots are flooded again, the region’s government website says.

New Delhi, Jul 26 (PTI) The Delhi High Court on Friday asked the municipal bodies why the city was still not clean despite their claims that they are making all efforts to keep the national capital's streets and colonies free of garbage and other waste.

"Why is Delhi still not clean," a bench of Justices G S Sistani and Jyoti Singh asked the three municipal corporations and directed them to file affidavits indicating how they intend to keep the city clean and also the number of safai karamchaaris, supervisors and senior officers in each zone along with their respective roles.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Two strong earthquakes hours apart struck a group of sparsely populated islands in the Luzon Strait in the northern Philippines early Saturday, killing at least eight people, injuring about 60 and causing substantial damage.

The quakes collapsed houses built of stone and wood, arousing residents from sleep, said Roldan Esdicul, who heads the Batanes provincial disaster-response office. Footage showed people clearing boulder-size stone bricks to pull out one body from the rubble of a home.

Guwahati/Patna, July 25 (PTI) The death toll in Bihar and Assam floods mounted to 198 on Thursday, with more than 1.17 crore people affected by the calamity in the two states, officials said.

In Assam, the death toll climbed to to 75 with one more person succumbing in Dhubri, while water level rose in seven districts of the state.

Due to release of excess water from Kuricchu Hydropower reservoirs in Bhutan's Kuricchu River, western Assam districts of Barpeta, Nalbari, Baksa, Chirang, Kokrajhar, Dhubri and South Salmara are facing rise in flood water level.

BERLIN (AP) — Europeans cooled off in public fountains Wednesday as a new heat wave spread across parts of the continent and was already breaking records.

Belgium and Germany registered their highest-ever temperatures, while the Netherlands saw its hottest day in 75 years.

And the mercury is expected to rise even further.

Paris and other parts of France could see temperatures exceeding 40 C (104 F) on Thursday along with Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

WELLINGTON, July 22 (Xinhua) -- A 3.9-magnitude earthquake with a depth of 7 km hit New Zealand's Christchurch at 8:43 a.m. local time on Monday.

"Just another reminder that the Christchurch aftershock sequence is still ongoing," New Zealand's GeoNet said on its Twitter account.

It came after a magnitude 3.5 earthquake on Saturday night.

According to the GeoNet website, Over 4,000 people reported they felt the jolt just before 9 a.m.

21 July 2019; DW: Nearly 150 million people from the Midwest to the Atlantic coast are sweating through scorching temperatures, with New York declaring a heat emergency. At least three people have died, and many events have been canceled.

People across much of the East and Central United States are facing dangerously hot weather, with major cities including New York, Philadelphia and Washington experiencing temperatures nearing 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit).

21 July 2019; DW: Italy's Mount Etna began spewing hot ash and lava overnight, forcing authorities to close two airports in eastern Sicily. Experts detected "lively spattering" at the volcano last month.

Europe's biggest active volcano, Mount Etna, erupted early Saturday with fiery explosions and lava flows, the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) said.

20 July 2019; DW: Tourists and a helicopter pilot have reported dozens of dead whales to authorities in Iceland.

David Schwarzhans and his American passengers, who were on a sightseeing tour, counted 50 long-finned pilot whales washed up on a remote beach in the west of the Nordic island.

The group took a video of their discovery on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula and alerted police on Thursday but the details were only made public on Saturday.

19 July 2019; DW: A US scientific agency has reported record-breaking temperatures in several regions across the globe, including Europe. Scientists have warned of the destabilizing effect of carbon emissions on Earth's climate.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said June 2019 was the hottest June in nearly 140 years.

The data confirms earlier reports from the EU's satellite agency that Europe's average temperature this year was 2 degrees Celsius hotter than normal.