Natural disaster

Storm-battered Louisiana residents and area businesses, who have endured almost a week without electricity, are having trouble finding generators or fuel to power them, making it difficult for residents to cool their homes after Hurricane Ida. Ida’s severe winds knocked out power to more than one million homes and businesses. …

Flash flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ida killed at least 41 people in the New York area overnight into Thursday, including several who perished in their basements during the “historic” weather event that officials blamed on climate change. Record rainfall, which prompted an unprecedented flash flood emergency warning …

A massive oil spill caused by leakage from a power plant inside one of Syria’s oil refineries is spreading along the coast of the Mediterranean country, Syria’s state news agency said and satellite photos showed Wednesday. SANA said the spill reached the coastal town of Jableh, about 20 kilometers north …

Algeria’s Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra said Tuesday that his country has severed diplomatic relations with Morocco due to “hostile actions,” following months of resurgent tensions between the North African rivals. The countries have long accused one another of backing opposition movements as proxies, with Algeria’s support for separatists in the …

Saudi firefighters have put out a blaze on the Makkah-Jeddah expressway, authorities said on Tuesday. The fire was caused after a tanker carrying petroleum was involved in a road accident. Provincial authorities said ten vehicles had caught fire, but that there were no injuries. A video posted to the Makkah …

More than 4 million people in Lebanon could face a critical shortage of water or be cut off completely in the coming days, UNICEF warned, due to a severe fuel crisis. Lebanon, with a population of 6 million, is at a low point in a two-year financial meltdown, with a …

Flash floods that swept through towns in Turkish Black Sea provinces have killed 70 people and emergency workers continue to search for 47 missing people, authorities say. The floods last week brought chaos as torrents of water tossed dozens of cars and heaps of debris along streets, destroyed buildings and …

A wildfire blazed in hills west of Jerusalem on Sunday, forcing the evacuation of several small outlying communities, emergency services and witnesses said, as clouds of smoke drifted over parts of the city about 10 km (six miles) away. Israel’s Magen David Adom national ambulance service said no injuries were …

At least 20 people were killed and 79 injured in a fuel tank explosion in the Akkar region in northern Lebanon, the Lebanese Red Cross said on its Twitter account early on Sunday. Lebanon is suffering from a severe fuel shortage, leading to long lines at gas stations and extended …

Emergency workers battled to relieve flood-hit areas of Turkey’s Black Sea region, as the death toll rose to 31 in the second natural disaster to strike the country this month. Key points: Flooding destroyed bridges, closed roads, cut off electricity to hundreds of villages and tossed heaps of debris About 45 …

Heavy rains that triggered floods and mudslides left a woman missing Wednesday in northern Turkey’s coastal Bartin province, officials said. The floods in the Black Sea province came early Wednesday as firefighters in southwest Turkey worked to extinguish wildfires a wildfire in Mugla province, which runs along the Aegean Sea. …

At least 25 soldiers died saving residents from wildfires ravaging mountain forests and villages east of Algeria’s capital, the president announced Tuesday night as the civilian toll rose to at least 17. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune tweeted that the soldiers were “martyrs” who saved 100 people from the fires in two …

Until devastated by wildfires, hills near the Turkish sea resort of Marmaris were decked in thick green pine forest. Now these same hills form a ghostly, grey-brown landscape topped with blackened tree stumps as though sketched in charcoal. Drone footage from the small tourist seaside town of Icmeler near Marmaris …

A fire broke out at a storage tank in a petrochemicals plant on Iran’s Gulf island of Kharg on Tuesday, but the blaze was extinguished and there were no casualties, the state news agency IRNA reported. “The fire was completely put out after four hours by the island’s firemen,” Nasser …

The death toll from wildfires on Turkey’s southern coast rose to eight on Sunday as firefighters battled for a fifth day to contain blazes still raging in coastal resort towns. Two more people died on Sunday due to wildfires in the southern town of Manavgat, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said, …

Raging wildfires have burned large swathes of Lebanon’s pine forests in the mountainous north of the country, killing at least one firefighter and forcing some residents to flee, the National News Agency said on Wednesday. The country’s fire brigade and army are trying to control the fires fueled by strong …

The death toll in devastating flooding in western Germany and Belgium rose to at least 170 on Saturday after burst rivers and flash floods this week collapsed houses and ripped up roads and power lines. Some 143 people died in the flooding in Germany’s worst natural disaster in more than …