Australia and Oceania

Sea of white: ‘Hundreds of thousands’ of fish dead in Australia

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — “Hundreds of thousands” of fish have died in drought-stricken Australia in the last few days and more mass deaths are likely to occur, the authorities warned Tuesday. Locals around the Darling River were confronted with a sea of white, as dead fish carpeted the waters near the southeastern Outback town of Menindee. Just weeks after up to a million were killed — with scientists pointing to low water and oxygen levels […]

Record breaking floods hit north Australia

  CAIRNS, Australia (AFP) — Communities were cut off, farmers stranded and cows washed offshore as heavy rain pelted northeast Australia Sunday, with one major river breaking 118-year-old floodwater records. The Bureau of Meteorology said Queensland’s Daintree River rose to 12.60 meters — a level not seen in over a century — and local authorities warned that some residents in remote areas could be cut off for days. The heritage listed Daintree Rainforest received more […]

Remains found of explorer who put Australia on the map

  SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — The remains of the first British explorer to circumnavigate the Australian continent and popularize the country’s name have been found near a busy London railway station. Archaeologists sifting through a vast burial ground near Euston station said Friday they had found a coffin plate identifying the last resting place of Royal Navy captain Matthew Flinders. Flinders was buried on 23rd July 1814, but not before publishing “A Voyage to Terra […]

Power outages as Australia swelters through extreme temperatures

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Tens of thousands of people sweltering through a brutal heatwave in southern Australia were left without power Friday, as the grid struggled with surging demand. Authorities said about 60,000 customers were experiencing blackouts, after it ordered forced outages to reduce the risk of the entire grid failing. “We have asked for 100 megawatts of involuntary load reduction, we have notified the networks, they’re in process of doing that,” Australian Energy Market […]

South Australia heatwave smashes record temperatures

ADELAIDE, Australia (AFP) — Temperatures in southern Australia topped 49 degrees on Thursday, shattering previous records as sizzling citizens received free beer and heat-stressed bats fell from trees. The Bureau of Meteorology reported temperatures of 49.5 Celsius (120 Fahrenheit) north of Adelaide, while inside the city temperatures reached 47.7 Celsius, breaking a record that had stood since 1939. Adelaide residents are used to sweltering days during the southern hemisphere summer, but even they struggled with […]

Tunnel through an Australian mountain? No problem, says Elon Musk

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia could become a test ground for another of Elon Musk’s massive infrastructure projects after the maverick billionaire tweeted a “bargain” price to build a tunnel through a mountain to solve Sydney’s traffic woes. Musk in 2017 made a Twitter pitch — and followed through with the offer — to build what was the world’s biggest battery in an Australian state to solve its severe energy crisis. The entrepreneur behind electric […]

Nine dead in Papua New Guinea floods

KOKOPO, Papua New Guinea (AFP) — Weeks of heavy rains and flooding have killed at least nine people in Papua New Guinea, with authorities warning more bad weather and devastation could be on the way. Central Province Disaster Division Coordinator Tumai Ipo told AFP Monday they have received reports of at least nine deaths, with many more families left homeless or without access to safe drinking water. Near the capital Port Moresby, there have been […]

Shark attacks woman, child at popular Australian tourist site

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — A woman and a child were bitten by a shark in the popular Whitsunday Islands near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on Thursday in the latest of a string of such attacks, reports and officials said. The Queensland state ambulance service said the pair were rushed to hospital with leg and foot wounds from the attack along a beach on Hamilton Island, but the injuries were not life-threatening. Local media said the […]

Suspect packages sent to diplomatic missions in Australia

MELBOURNE, Australia (AFP) — Suspicious packages were sent to more than a dozen foreign embassies and consulates in major Australian cities on Wednesday in a seemingly orchestrated but scattershot campaign. Emergency services raced to a string of diplomatic facilities which had received packages containing suspected hazardous material, all within the space of a few hours. There was no obvious pattern to countries targeted, with consulates of the United States, China, Italy, India, Japan and New […]

Australian minister hints Saudi teen likely to get asylum

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) – Australia gave its strongest hint yet on Wednesday that an 18-year-old Saudi woman in Bangkok would be granted humanitarian asylum, despite efforts by Riyadh and her family to force her return home. Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun has documented her bid to flee her allegedly abusive family with minute-by-minute social media updates, intensifying the global spotlight on Saudi Arabia’s rights record. As public pressure heightened, an Australian minister appeared to go beyond Canberra’s […]

Volcano erupts on remote Papua New Guinea island

  SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — One of Papua New Guinea’s most active volcanoes has erupted, authorities said Tuesday, pummelling villages on a remote island with volcanic rock before subsiding. Manam island is a volcanic cone that towers out of the sea north of the Papua New Guinea mainland and has a history of eruptions, with major activity in November 2004 forcing the evacuation of some 9,000 people. The volcano has erupted a number of times […]

Marshalls treat grounded Chinese vessel as ‘crime scene’

  MAJURO, Marshall Islands (AFP) — The grounding of a Chinese-flagged fishing vessel in the Marshall Islands is being treated as a “crime scene”, officials in the Pacific Ocean archipelago said Monday. The 308-foot (94-meter) boat, which ran aground last week on a remote northern atoll, was not licensed to be in the country’s waters. “What they were doing in Marshall Islands’ waters is still unanswered,” Chief Secretary Ben Graham said, adding that the government […]