Environment

When John Warmington first began diving the reefs outside his home in Vanuatu’s Havannah Harbour 10 years ago, the coral rose like a sunken forest – tall stands of staghorns branched into yellow antlers, plate corals layered like canopies, and clouds of darting fish wove through the labyrinth.

“We used to know every inch of that reef,” he said. “It was like a friend.”

Now, it is unrecognisable.

After Cyclone Pam battered the reef in 2015, sediment from inland rivers smothered the coral beds. Crown-of-thorns starfish swept in and devoured the recovering polyps.

Back-to-back cyclones in 2023 crushed what remained. Then, in December 2024, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake shook the seabed.

What remains is a coral graveyard – bleached rubble scattered across the seabed, habitats collapsed, and life vanished.

“We have come out of the water in tears,” said Warmington, who has logged thousands of dives on this single reef. “We just see heartbreak.”

That heartbreak is becoming more common across this Pacific island nation, where intensifying cyclones, rising seas, and saltwater intrusion are reshaping coastlines and threatening daily life.

Since 1993, sea levels around Vanuatu’s shores have risen by about 6mm (0.24in) per year – significantly faster than the global average – and in some areas, tectonic activity has doubled that rate.

On Wednesday, Vanuatu will have its day in the world’s highest court. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will issue an advisory opinion on what legal obligations nations have to address climate change, and what consequences they may face if they do not.

The case, led by Vanuatu and backed by more than 130 countries, is seen as a potential turning point in international climate law.

The opinion will not be legally binding, but could help shape future efforts to hold major emitters accountable, and secure the funding and action small island nations need to adapt or survive.

It comes after decades of frustration for Pacific nations that have watched their homelands disappear.

In Tuvalu, where the average elevation is just two metres (6.6ft), more than a third of the population has applied for a climate migration visa to Australia.

By 2100, much of the country is projected to be under water at high tide.

In Nauru, the government has begun selling passports to wealthy foreigners – offering visa-free access to dozens of countries – in a bid to generate revenue for possible relocation efforts.

Vanuatu has already sought opinions from other international courts, and is pushing for the recognition of ecocide – the destruction of the environment – as a crime under the International Criminal Court.

Not all of these effects can be attributed solely to climate change, said Christina Shaw, chief executive of the Vanuatu Environmental Science Society.

Coastal development, tectonic subsidence, volcanic eruptions, deforestation, and pollution are also contributing to ecosystem decline.

“Vanuatu’s environment is quite fragile by its very nature in that it is young with narrow reefs, has small amounts of topsoil, and is impacted regularly by natural disasters,” she said. “But we do have to think about the other human impacts on our environment as well.”

The damage is not limited to homes, gardens, and reefs – it is reaching into places once thought to be untouchable.

On the island of Pele, village chief Amos Kalsont sits at his brother’s grave as waves lap against broken headstones half-buried in sand.

At high tide, both his brother’s and father’s graves sit just a few arm’s lengths from the sea. Some homes and gardens have already been moved inland, and saltwater intrusion has tainted the community’s primary drinking water source.

Now, the community is considering relocating the entire village – but that would mean leaving the land their grandparents cleared by hand.

Many in Vanuatu remain committed to building something stronger and hope the rest of the world will support them.

Back in Havannah Harbour, John Warmington still dives the reef he considers part of his family. While much of it has gone, he and his wife Sandy have begun replanting coral fragments in the hope of restoring what remains.

Sweat covers Isaac Barnes’s face under his beekeeper’s veil as he hauls boxes of honeycomb from his hives to his truck. It is a workout in what feels like a sauna as the late-morning temperatures rise.

Though Barnes was hot, his bees were even hotter. Their body temperatures can be up to 15 degrees Celsius (27 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the air around them. As global temperatures rise, scientists are trying to better understand the effects on managed and wild bees as they pollinate crops, gather nectar, make honey, and reproduce.

They noticed flying bees gathering nectar avoided overheating on the hottest days by using fewer but harder wingbeats to keep their body temperature below dangerous levels, according to a study published last year. Scientists also say that bees, like people, may cope by retreating to a cooler environment such as the shade or their nest.

“Just like we go into the shade, sweat, or we might work less hard, bees actually do the exact same thing so they can avoid the heat,” said Jon Harrison, an environmental physiologist at Arizona State University and one of the study’s authors.

Generally, most bees are heat-tolerant, but as the climate warms, some experts think their ability to fend off disease and gather food might become more difficult. Habitat loss, increased use of pesticides, diseases, and lack of forage for both managed and wild bees are all listed as potential contributors to the global decline of bees and other pollinators.

Earlier this year, preliminary results from the annual US Beekeeping Survey found that beekeepers lost almost 56 percent of their managed colonies, the highest loss since the survey started in 2010.

Almost all of the managed honeybee colonies in the United States are used to pollinate crops such as almonds, apples, cherries, and blueberries. Fewer pollinators can lead to less pollination and potentially lower yields.

Back at Isaac Barnes’s hives in Ohio, thousands of honeybees fly around as he gathers boxes to take back to his farm for honey production. Nearby, a couple of his bees land on milkweed flowers, a rare bit of plant diversity in an area dominated by maize and soya bean fields.

For Barnes, who operates Honeyrun Farm with his wife, Jayne, one of the challenges heat can pose to his 500 honeybee hives is fending off parasitic mites that threaten the bees. If temperatures get too hot, he cannot apply formic acid, an organic chemical that kills the mites. If it is applied when it is too hot, the bees could die.

Last year, they lost nearly a third of the 400 hives they sent to California to help pollinate commercial almond groves. Barnes thinks those hives may have been in poor health before pollination because they were unable to ward off mites when it was hot months earlier.

It is only in the last decade that people have become aware of the magnitude of the pollinator decline globally, said Harrison, of Arizona State University. Data is limited on how much climate change and heat stress are contributing to pollinator decline.

The Trump administration’s proposed budget would eliminate the research programme that funds the US Geological Survey Bee Lab, which supports the inventory, monitoring and natural history of the nation’s wild bees. Other grants for bee research are also in jeopardy.

US Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon said his country’s pollinators are in “grave danger”, and he will fight for the federal funding. Pollinators contribute to the health of the planet, the crops we grow and the food we eat, he said.

“Rather than taking bold action to protect them, the Trump administration has proposed a reckless budget that would zero out funding for critical research aimed at saving important pollinators,” he said in a statement to The Associated Press news agency.

Harrison said his research on this topic would come to a halt if cuts are made to his federal funding, and it would generally be more difficult for scientists to study the disappearance of bees and other pollinators and improve how they prevent these losses. Not being able to manage these pollinator deaths could cause the price of fruits, vegetables, nuts, coffee and chocolate to rise or become scarce.

“Hopefully, even if such research is defunded in the US, such research will continue in Europe and China, preventing these extreme scenarios,” said Harrison.

Banana Islands, Sierra Leone – As the sun dips below the horizon, Emmanuel Pratt tugs a worn cord and the outboard engine sputters to life. His wooden canoe, painted in white and faded blue, cuts through the darkening waters. Fruit bats screech overhead.

Pratt, 35, is a seasoned sea cucumber diver from the Banana Islands – an archipelago home to about 500 people in Sierra Leone. For 15 years, he has made a living scouring the ocean floor for these creatures that resemble warty, oversized sea slugs. They hide in the silt by day and emerge at night to inch across the ocean floor, gobbling up decomposing matter.

Also on the canoe, 25-year-old Omolade Jones – sweating in a half-zipped-up wetsuit – perches on the edge of the boat and gazes out at the dark water.

After 10 minutes, the younger diver gestures at Pratt to cut the engine and readies himself to dive. Jones blows on his mask, grabs an underwater torch and wraps a breathing hose around his waist.

The seabed surrounding the small, jungle-coated archipelago used to teem with sea cucumbers. Nowadays, they are scarce and scattered.  Freediving is no longer an option. Pratt and Jones have to dive deeper, for longer, to find their catch.

They have turned to “hookah diving” – a makeshift system where air is pumped from a diesel-powered generator on the boat down through a plastic hose. It is a risky and fragile lifeline. The engines are often old and the air is easily contaminated by diesel fumes. And experts say it is much more dangerous than scuba or free diving.

As the diesel engine that powers his air supply rattles in the boat, Jones quietly slips over the edge into the black water. The yellow hose trails behind him as he swims away from the canoe. Minutes later, his torch lights up a column of water above the seabed.

Pratt sits in the canoe, a cigarette dangling from his lips, his eyes fixed on the spot where Jones’s light is. “The cucumbers are running out,” he says glumly.

While they used to haul in dozens of buckets of sea cucumbers a night, now they struggle to find a handful. Pratt says the divers rarely make more than $40 on a dive – barely enough to cover the costs of fuel or to hire some of the diving equipment.

Not long after Jones exits the boat, he flashes his torch to signal that he is ready to swim back in. When he reaches the canoe, he hoists himself up on the side with his forearms. In one hand, he holds the torch, in the other, a small, brown sea cucumber.

Pratt takes his turn and disappears into the dark water. He surfaces a while later with a sea cucumber. But the divers are unimpressed. After a couple of hours at sea, they head back to the mooring with a meagre catch of just three specimens.

Overhead, the almost-full moon casts a white sheen over the water and dimly illuminates the way home.

Vietnam is bracing for Typhoon Wipha, expected to make landfall Tuesday with winds up to 166 km/h. Mass evacuations, flight cancellations, and flood alerts are underway as the country prepares for deadly floods and landslides. The storm killed three in the Philippines.

The project on a river that runs through Tibet and India downstream could dwarf the Three Gorges Dam when completed.

China has started building a mega-dam on the Yarlung Zangbo River in Tibet, which could become the world’s largest source of hydroelectric power when completed, according to Chinese officials.

The mega-project in the foothills of the Himalayas will include five hydropower stations on the river, which is also known as the Brahmaputra, further downstream in India, and the Jamuna River in Bangladesh.

China’s Xinhua state news agency reported that Premier Li Qiang attended a commencement ceremony for the dam on Saturday.

Beijing had planned the project for several years, and approval was given in December last year, linking the development to the country’s carbon neutrality targets and economic goals in the Tibet region.

“The electricity generated will be primarily transmitted to other regions for consumption, while also meeting local power needs in Tibet,” Xinhua reported after the groundbreaking ceremony in southeastern Tibet’s city of Nyingchi.

The project is expected to cost an estimated 1.2 trillion yuan ($167.1bn), Xinhua said.

India said in January that it had raised concerns with China about the project, saying it would “monitor and take necessary measures to protect our interests”.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs said at the time that China “has been urged to ensure that the interests of the downstream states of the Brahmaputra are not harmed by activities in upstream areas”.

In December, Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the project would not have any “negative impact” downstream, adding that China “will also maintain communication with countries at the lower reaches” of the river.

China annexed Tibet in 1950, and has built several dams on the region’s rivers, prompting concerns from Tibetans about the potential impacts on the unique ecosystems of the Tibetan Plateau.

Tibet’s vast glaciers and major rivers provide fresh water to 1.3 billion people in 10 countries, according to Yale’s E360 environmental magazine.

The Yarlung Tsangpo is the world’s highest river, reaching some 5,000 metres (16,404 feet) above sea level, and is considered sacred to Tibetans.

The new dam is also being built just 30km (18 miles) from China’s vast border with India, much of which is disputed, with tens of thousands of soldiers posted on either side.

Once built, the dam could provide as much as three times as much energy as the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in central China.

The Three Gorges Dam, which was completed in 2003, controversially displaced some 1.4 million people.

Tibet is much more sparsely populated, with some 2,000 people displaced for the construction of the Yagen Hydropower Station in 2015, according to local media reports.

Heatwaves in Europe have arrived unexpectedly early this year with two major spikes in temperatures already affecting millions of people and a third gripping parts of the continent.

From late June to mid-July, temperatures soared as high as 46 degrees Celsius (114 degrees Fahrenheit) with some locations in Western Europe experiencing record-breaking heat.

Wildfires in Greece have triggered evacuations while in France, emergency measures have closed schools and even the Eiffel Tower. In Italy, bans on outdoor labour have affected many workers.

Spain’s environment ministry said high temperatures have caused 1,180 deaths in the past two months, a sharp increase from the same period last year.

According to a study, about 2,300 heat-related deaths were recorded in 12 European cities from June 23 to July 2. About 1,500 of those deaths were linked to climate change, according to the researchers at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“Climate change has made it significantly hotter than it would have been, which in turn makes it a lot more dangerous,” Dr Ben Clarke, a researcher at Imperial College London, said.

Where have heatwaves occurred?

The first heatwave Europe experienced peaked between June 17 and 22 and affected Western and Southern Europe.

During the second heatwave, peaking between June 30 and July 2, temperatures exceeded 40C (104F) in several countries with some cities in Spain and Portugal reaching 46C (118F).

What is causing the heatwaves?

The persistent heat is being driven by a high-pressure system over Western Europe known as a heat dome.

It acts like a lid that traps hot air under it. The pressure from the weather system pushes air down into a hot, dome-shaped mass and prevents milder weather systems from moving through.

As a result, it creates prolonged periods of excessively high temperatures.

The heat in turn prevents clouds from building up, reducing the chances of rain.

This June was the warmest on record for Western Europe

Due to the weather phenomenon, Western Europe saw its warmest June on record with an average temperature of 20.49C (68.88F), surpassing the previous record for the month from 2003 by 0.06C (0.11F), according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

On June 30, temperatures averaged 24.9C (76.8F) over Western Europe, setting a new daily temperature record for June. The same average temperature was recorded on July 1.

That was one of the highest daily temperatures ever observed in Europe during this time of year. It was exceeded only during the heatwaves of 2003, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023.

Europe is the fastest warming continent and has warmed by 0.53C (0.95F) per decade since the mid-1990s, according to the ERA5 dataset from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Several factors are causing this effect in Europe, including shifts in atmospheric circulation, leading to more frequent and intense heatwaves. Additionally, reduced air pollution means that more solar radiation is reaching the Earth’s surface and reducing cloud cover. Certain areas of Europe also extend into the Arctic, which is the fastest warming region on the planet.

Countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Portugal saw the hottest temperatures recorded since 1979 from the start of the first heatwave to the end of the second heatwave – June 17 to July 2.

Heatwaves have been deadly for Europe.

A report by Imperial’s Grantham Institute published last week studied 12 European cities to measure changes in the intensity of heatwaves.

From June 23 to July 2 it estimated there were 2,300 heat-related deaths, including 1,500 linked to climate change, which made the heatwaves more severe.

Climate change was behind:

• 317 of the estimated excess heat deaths in Milan
• 286 in Barcelona
• 235 in Paris
• 171 in London
• 164 in Rome
• 108 in Madrid
• 96 in Athens
• 47 in Budapest
• 31 in Zagreb
• 21 in Frankfurt
• 21 in Lisbon
• six in Sassari, Italy

The study found that the heatwaves were more deadly due to the early arrival of higher temperatures, which usually occur in late July and in August.

People in Europe are not acclimatised to such high temperatures, especially the older population. More than 80 percent of the estimated excess deaths are expected in people older than 65.

The world is getting hotter

Last month was the third warmest June globally since 1850, according to average temperatures. June’s average surface air temperature was 16.46C (61.62F) to 0.47C (0.84F) and higher than the 1991-2020 average for June, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Global temperatures remain unusually high, closely tracking 2024 – the hottest year on record, having averaged a surface air temperature of 15.1C (59.18F), which was more than 1.5C (2.7F) higher than pre-industrial levels, a threshold seen as crucial to avoid dangerous global warming.

An article published last month in the Earth System Science Data journal also noted that human-induced warming has been increasing at a rate of 0.27C per decade from 2015 to 2024, which is the highest rate observed in the instrumental record.

Thunderstorms triggered flash floods in New York City and New Jersey on Monday, stranding commuters and motorists. The downpour was the city’s second-wettest hour in history, with more than two inches of rain. Authorities say two people were killed in New Jersey when their vehicle was swept away.

The fires were contained with help from Turkish, Jordanian, Lebanese, Qatari and Iraqi firefighting teams.

Wildfires in northwestern Syria, which have burned vast tracts of forest and farmland and forced evacuations, have been brought under control after 10 days.

In a statement posted on Facebook on Sunday, the civil defence agency said, “with the spread of the fires halted and the fire hotspots brought under control on all fronts”, teams on the ground are working to cool down the affected areas while monitoring any signs of reignition.

The blazes in the coastal province of Latakia broke out on July 3 amid an intense heatwave across the region, which also affected the Dortyol district and neighbouring Turkiye.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it destroyed about 100 square kilometres (40 square miles) of forest and farmland.

As the fires raged, Syrian emergency workers not only had to use outdated equipment but also contend with high temperatures, strong winds, rugged mountainous terrain and the danger of explosive war remnants.

This all comes in a country worn down by years of conflict and economic crisis, nearly seven months after the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad and the installation of a transitional government led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the now-disbanded armed group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

In a post on X, Raed al-Saleh, Syria’s minister for emergencies and disaster management, said civil defence and firefighting teams “managed to halt the spread of the fire on all fronts” with help from Turkish, Jordanian, Lebanese, Qatari and Iraqi teams.

Turkiye earlier sent two firefighting aircraft to help battle the blazes. Eleven fire trucks and water support vehicles were also dispatched, according to al-Saleh.

“Firefighting teams are intensively working to extinguish remaining hotspots and cool the areas already put out. The situation is moving toward containment followed by comprehensive cooling operations,” said al-Saleh.

“There are still threats due to wind activity, but we are working to prevent any renewed fire expansion.”

Authorities have not reported any casualties, but several towns in Latakia province were evacuated as a precaution.

With human-induced climate change increasing the likelihood and intensity of droughts and wildfires worldwide, Syria has also been battered by heatwaves and low rainfall.

In June, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said Syria has “not seen such bad climate conditions in 60 years”.

Nearly half the global population has also been exposed to dust levels exceeding WHO safety thresholds.

A new report by the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has found that sand and dust storms are leading to “premature deaths” due to climate change, with more than 330 million people in 150 countries affected.

On Saturday, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) marked the International Day of Combating Sand and Dust Storms and its designation of 2025 – 2034 as the UN Decade on Combating Sand and Dust Storms.

The storms “are fast becoming one of the most overlooked yet far-reaching global challenges of our time”, said Assembly President Philemon Yang. “They are driven by climate change, land degradation and unsustainable practices.”

The secretary-general of WMO, Celeste Saulo, said on Thursday that sand and dust storms do not just mean “dirty windows and hazy skies. They harm the health and quality of life of millions of people and cost many millions of dollars through disruption to air and ground transport, on agriculture and on solar energy production.”

Airborne particles from these storms contribute to 7 million premature deaths annually, said Yang, adding that they trigger respiratory and cardiovascular disease, and reduce crop yields by up to 25%, causing hunger and migration.

“About 2 billion tonnes of dust are emitted yearly, equivalent to 300 Great Pyramids of Giza” in Egypt, Laura Paterson, the WMO’s UN representative, told the UNGA.

More than 80% of the world’s dust comes from the deserts in North Africa and the Middle East, added Paterson, but it has a global effect because the particles can travel hundreds and even thousands of kilometres across continents and oceans.

Undersecretary-General Rola Dashti, head of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, told the assembly the storms’ economic costs are “staggering”.

In the Middle East and North Africa, it costs $150bn, roughly 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP), annually to deal with dust and sand storms, she said.

“This spring alone, the Arab region experienced acute disruption,” Dashti said, citing severe storms in Iraq that overwhelmed hospitals with respiratory cases and storms in Kuwait and Iran that forced school and office closures.

Dust from the Sahara Desert in Africa has travelled as far as the Caribbean and Florida, she said. For the United States, dust and wind erosion caused $154bn in damage in 2017, a quadrupling of the amount since 1995, according to a study in the scientific journal Nature.

The WMO and World Health Organization also warned that the health burden is rising sharply, with 3.8 billion people – nearly half the global population – exposed to dust levels exceeding WHO safety thresholds between 2018 and 2022, up from 2.9 billion people affected between 2003 and 2007.

The seal population has increased from about 4,000, considered nearly extinct, in the late 1980s to about 50,000.

Lithuania will make a concerted effort to save its grey seal population, which has managed to stabilise though continues to remain vulnerable, in the Baltic Sea as it contends with shrinking fish stocks, pollution and the negative effect of climate change.

Over the years, Lithuania has introduced several bans, including on toxic pesticide usage and commercial cod fishing, in an effort to fortify its grey seal population.

The effects of climate change on the seals’ habitat are severe, as the Baltic Sea, which is shared by the European Union and Russia, rarely freezes over now, depriving the seals of sanctuaries to rear their cubs.

“Mothers are forced to breed on land in high concentration with other seals,” said Vaida Surviliene, a scientist at Lithuania’s Vilnius University told the AFP news agency. “They are unable to recognise their cubs and often leave them because of it,” she said.

Survival rates for cubs in the wild can be as low as 5 percent, according to local scientists.

Rearing cubs ashore also leaves mother seals exposed to humans, other wild animals, rowdy males, as well as a higher risk of diseases, according to Arunas Grusas, a biologist at the Baltic Sea Animal Rehabilitation Centre in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda.

Grusas first began caring for seals in 1987, when he brought back a pup to his office at the Klaipeda Sea Museum, which now oversees the new rehabilitation centre built in 2022.

“We taught them how to feed themselves, got them used to the water – they had to get comfortable with the sea, which spat them out ashore practically dying,” Grusas said.

The very first cubs were placed into makeshift baths set up in an office. The scientists then nursed them back to health, first with liquid formula before moving on to solid food.

In the late 1980s, the seals were nearly extinct – there were just about 4,000 to 5,000 left in the sea, from a population of about 100,000 before World War II.

Recently, a growing number of adult seals have been washing up on Lithuanian beaches.

Scientists like Grusas point the finger at near-shore fishing nets, where seals desperate for food end up entangled and ultimately drown.

Once the seals are ready to re-enter the wild, scientists release them into the sea with GPS trackers, which show the seals generally favour a route north towards the Swedish Gotland island in the middle of the Baltic Sea, where fish are more plentiful.

Some, however, are scared to venture off alone and return to the boat from which they were released. Eventually, they all find their way back to the wild.

The annual maximum ice extent in the Baltic Sea has been decreasing rapidly since the 1980s, with the lowest extent on record in the winter of 2019-2020.

Eyewitness video shows climbers on Malaysia’s Mount Kinabalu descending its peak, wading through surging water and holding onto rope lines after torrential rains. Officials confirmed all the hikers made it down safely.

Texans gather in Kerrville to mourn 120 flood victims and pray for more than 160 still missing.

Several hundred people have gathered in Tivy Antler Stadium in Texas to mourn the many lives lost and pray for those still missing from the catastrophic flash floods that battered the state over the United States July Fourth holiday.

The vigil, held on Wednesday in Kerrville – one of the worst-affected areas – brought together grieving families, local clergy, and volunteers. “Our communities were struck with tragedy literally in the darkness,” youth minister Wyatt Wentrcek told the crowd. “Middle of the night.”

At least 120 people have been confirmed dead, with more than 160 still unaccounted for, making it the deadliest inland flooding in the US since 1976. No survivors have been found since Friday.

Blue shirts bearing the school’s slogan, Tivy Fight Never Die, and green ribbons for Camp Mystic – a century-old all-girls Christian camp where at least 27 campers and counsellors died – were worn by many attendees. Officials said five campers and one counsellor from the camp remain unaccounted for.

Ricky Pruitt of the Kerrville Church of Christ addressed the crowd, noting the emotional weight of holding the vigil at a stadium more often used to celebrate sporting triumphs. “Tonight is very different than all of those nights,” he said, as reported by The Associated Press.

As mourners held each other and wiped their tears, search crews continued scouring the Guadalupe River – on foot, horseback, and by air – for those still missing. Search dogs were deployed to sniff through trees and piles of debris. Officials admitted hope of finding survivors had all but faded, with efforts now focused on giving families closure.

Worst flood in 50 years

Meteorologist Bob Henson said the disaster ranks as the most lethal inland flood in nearly five decades, surpassing the 1976 Big Thompson Canyon flood in Colorado, which killed 144.

Governor Greg Abbott said many of those who were in the Hill Country during the holiday were never formally registered at a camp or hotel, making it harder to account for everyone.

He has faced growing criticism over the state’s flood preparedness, with many asking why warnings were delayed and evacuation measures insufficient.

Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha assured residents that accountability would come but said the immediate priority remains to recover the missing.

Abbott has urged state legislators to approve a new flood warning system and boost emergency communication networks. He is pushing for the issue to be addressed during a special legislative session already scheduled to begin on July 21. He also called for financial aid to support recovery efforts.

For years, local officials have debated installing a flood siren system, but concerns over cost and noise meant the idea was shelved – a decision now under intense scrutiny.

US President Donald Trump has pledged full federal support and is expected to visit the affected areas on Friday.

At least eight people were killed and dozens are missing after monsoon rains triggered severe flooding at the Nepal-China border. Trade was halted after flooding washed away the Friendship Bridge, which links the two countries.

Questions are mounting about what, if any, actions local officials took to warn campers and residents.

The hope of finding survivors of the catastrophic flooding in the US state of Texas continues to dim a day after the death toll surpassed 100, and crews kept up the search for people missing in the aftermath.

As the storms that had battered the Hill Country for the past four days began to subside, more attention was being paid to the government’s response.

Questions are mounting about what, if any, actions local officials took to warn campers and residents who were spending the July Fourth holiday weekend in the scenic area long known to locals as “flash flood alley”.

At public briefings, officials in hard-hit Kerr County have deflected questions about what preparations and warnings were made as forecasters warned of life-threatening conditions.

“We definitely want to dive in and look at all those things,” Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said on Monday. “We’re looking forward to doing that once we can get the search and rescue complete.”

Some camps were aware of the dangers and monitoring the weather. At least one moved several hundred campers to higher ground before the floods. But many were caught by surprise.

Debate has also intensified over how state and local officials reacted to weather alerts forecasting the possibility of a flash flood and the lack of an early warning siren system that might have mitigated the disaster.

On Monday, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick promised that the state would “step up” to pay for installing a flash-flood warning system in Kerrville by next summer if local governments “can’t afford it”.

“There should have been sirens,” Patrick said in a Fox News interview on Monday. “Had we had sirens here along this area … it’s possible that we would have saved some lives.”

The Houston Chronicle and New York Times reported that Kerr County officials had considered installing a flood-warning system about eight years ago, but dropped the effort as too costly after failing to secure a $1m grant to fund the project.

In San Antonio and in Washington, Democrats are questioning whether cuts at the National Weather Service (NWS) affected the forecasting agency’s response to catastrophic and deadly flooding in Central Texas.

The White House and Texas Governor Greg Abbott have denied the allegations and accused them of “politicising” the disaster.

The NWS’s San Antonio office is responsible for forecasting the area’s weather, collecting climate data and warning the public about dangerous conditions. Texas officials criticised the NWS over the weekend, arguing it failed to warn the public about impending danger.

The office issued a stream of flash flood warnings on Thursday and Friday across its digital and radio services, which are used to communicate with public safety professionals, according to alert records.

The messages grew increasingly urgent in the early hours of Friday morning. The team sent an emergency text message to area mobile phones at about 1:14 am, calling it a “dangerous and life-threatening situation”.

Phones must have reception or be near a cell tower to receive that message, said Antwane Johnson, former director of the Public Alert Team for the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Mobile coverage is spotty in areas around the Guadalupe River, according to Federal Communications Commission records last updated in December.

“Even though those messages were issued, it does not mean it got to the people who needed them,” said Erik Nielsen, who studies extreme rain at Texas A&M University.

Here’s a closer look at the timeline of how the floods hit Texas and what warnings were sent when:

July 2

• The Texas Division of Emergency Management announces that the agency “activated state emergency response resources in anticipation of increased threats of flooding in parts of West and Central Texas heading into the holiday weekend”.
• In a statement, the agency urges Texans to “monitor local forecasts and avoid driving or walking into flooded areas”.

July 3

• 9:47am (14:47 GMT) – The Texas Division of Emergency Management posts warnings on social media of “the flood threat in West & Central TX”. These urge drivers to check road conditions before heading out and to turn around upon seeing water.
• 3:35pm (20:35 GMT)- The NWS Austin/San Antonio office issues a flood watch for portions of the western Hill Country.
• 11:14pm (04:14 GMT) – NWS issues a flash flood warning for Bandera County, marking the first official warning to go out.

July 4 

• 1:14am (06:14 GMT) – A flash flood watch is issued for Bandera and Kerr counties. More than a dozen flash flood warnings for counties across the affected areas will be issued by mid-morning. A mobile alert goes out to all mobile phones with reception in the area. Three more warnings are sent in the next few hours, according to the New York Times.
• 3:30am (08:30 GMT) – The level of the Guadalupe River at Hunt in Kerr County has grown from 2.3 to 5.1 metres (7.7 to 16.8 feet), according to the New York Times. With the water so high, the gauge goes offline for an estimated three hours.
• 4:35am (09:35 GMT) – The river level hits 8.8m (29 feet) in Hunt County, according to meteorologists at San Antonio TV station KSAT. The water makes its way rapidly downriver. Ten minutes later, it crests at 7m (23 feet) in Kerrville.
• 5-7am (10-12:00 GMT)- According to CBS, NWS sends out three mobile phone messages in Kerr County reading: “This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!” News reports have noted that mobile service can be patchy in the more rural parts of Kerr County, and that some residents, accustomed to seeing flood warnings, were inclined to ignore them.
• 5:15am (10:15 GMT) – NWS reports “record high” water in Hunt.
• 6:29am (11:29 GMT) – The City of Kerrville Police Department (KPD) urges all residents who live near the Guadalupe to evacuate. “This is a life threatening event,” the KPD writes in a Facebook post. “Do not wait.”
• 7am (12:00 GMT) – The KPD and firefighters begin evacuating residents. Reunification sites and shelters are set up across town, including at a church and Walmart.
• 9:30am (14:30 GMT) – The Kerr County Sheriff’s Office announces fatalities, saying it will not release details until the next of kin have been notified. “This is a catastrophic flooding event,” reads a Facebook post. “The entire county is an extremely active scene. Residents are encouraged to shelter in place and not attempt travel. Those near creeks, streams, and the Guadalupe River should immediately move to higher ground.”
• Throughout the morning and afternoon, news of fatalities trickles out. Officials announce that around 20 children are unaccounted for at Camp Mystic. The camp later confirmed that 27 campers and counsellors died.
• 3:45pm (20:45 GMT) – The river gauge begins recording again, according to the New York Times. By now, the level at Hunt has dipped back to 9 feet. Although rains continue to lash the region, the river reaches extreme heights as it moves further downstream.

Scorching heat forces closure of the iconic site amid severe weather warnings and fire risks across the country.

Greece has shut the Acropolis and halted outdoor work across the country as a fierce heatwave scorches the region, pushing temperatures to above 40C (104F) and leading to fire alerts and severe weather warnings across the Balkans.

The Greek Ministry of Culture announced that the 2,500-year-old Acropolis site would remain closed until 5pm on Tuesday “for the safety of workers and visitors, owing to high temperatures”.

The landmark, perched above capital Athens with little natural shade, typically attracts tens of thousands of tourists each day.

This is Greece’s second severe heatwave since late June. Meteorologists expect temperatures to peak at 42C (107.6F) in some parts of the country, with Athens facing highs of 38C (100.4F). Similar conditions are forecast for Wednesday.

To protect labourers exposed to the sun, Greece’s Ministry of Labour has ordered a work pause from noon to 5pm in multiple regions, including popular islands. The restriction applies to outdoor jobs such as construction and food delivery.

“Days with a heatwave make my job more difficult,” 43-year-old courier Michalis Keskinidis told the AFP news agency. “We drink a lot of water, use electrolytes, and take breaks whenever possible.”

Heatwave across the Balkans

Last year, the Acropolis recorded 4.5 million visitors – up by more than 15 percent from the previous year – and authorities have been forced to close the site during previous heatwaves as well.

Fire danger remains a key concern. Civil protection officials have issued high-risk warnings for areas including greater Athens, central Greece and the Peloponnese. Greece’s fire service is already tackling up to 50 blazes daily, said senior fire officer Constantinos Tsigkas.

Elsewhere in the Balkans, extreme weather continues to batter neighbouring countries. In Serbia, meteorologists warned of elevated fire risks after 620 wildfires were reported on Monday. Simultaneously, parts of the country face threats of hail and hurricane-strength winds.

In Croatia, storms injured two people in Vinkovci when a power line collapsed onto a home. Strong winds and rain have flooded roads, knocked down trees and caused widespread power outages in Split, where a ferry broke loose and sank a tourist boat.

Hungary and Slovakia also suffered storm damage. In Budapest, wind speeds reached 137km/h (85mph), downing power lines and trees. The Hungarian Transport Ministry said rail services might take weeks to fully resume. In Slovakia, fierce winds tore roofs from buildings and disrupted transport across the east.

Blazes break out in France, Greece, Turkiye and Syria, with several other nations on high alert amid warnings of scorching weather.

Countries across the Mediterranean are battling fast-spreading wildfires and soaring temperatures as a heatwave sweeps through Southern Europe and parts of the Middle East, prompting evacuations and emergency alerts.

Blazes broke out in Greece, Turkiye, France and Syria on Sunday, with several other nations on high alert as forecasters warned that the scorching weather would intensify in the coming days.

From Spain to Italy, authorities urged residents to protect vulnerable people and avoid unnecessary travel during the region’s first severe heatwave of the summer.

Emergency teams and ambulances were stationed near popular tourist destinations, while meteorologists warned that extreme heat events – supercharged by climate change – are becoming more frequent and intense.

In western Turkiye, wildfires erupted on Sunday in Izmir province, fanned by strong winds. Firefighters, supported by aircraft, fought to control the blaze. Local authorities said five neighbourhoods in the Seferihisar district were evacuated as a precaution.

Authorities said firefighters have battled more than 600 fires in the drought-hit nation over the past week.

Turkish authorities arrested 10 suspects in relation to wildfires that broke out across the country over the past week, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Friday.

The wildfires killed at least three people in the western coastal province of Izmir.

Firefighters were still trying to control a blaze in the southern coastal area of Dortyol in Hatay province.

Meanwhile, in Greece, more than 160 firefighters, 46 fire trucks and five aircraft were deployed to combat flames in southern Evia.

The blaze, which began late on Friday, burned through forested areas and forced two villages to evacuate, officials said. Fires also broke out near Athens.

France also saw wildfires break out in the Corbieres region of Aude in the southwest, where temperatures soared above 40C (104F). A campsite and a historic abbey were evacuated.

Meteo France placed 84 of the country’s 101 departments under orange-level heat alerts on Monday.

In Spain, the national weather agency AEMET reported temperatures reaching 44C (111F) in parts of Extremadura and Andalusia.

“I feel that the heat we’re experiencing is not normal for this time of year,” said Diego Radames, a 32-year-old photographer in Madrid, speaking to the AFP news agency. “Madrid just keeps getting hotter.”

Italy placed 21 cities on red alert, including important ones, such as Rome, Milan and Naples. Emergency rooms reported a 10 percent rise in heatstroke cases, according to Mario Guarino of the Italian Society of Emergency Medicine.

Portugal also faced extreme conditions, with the capital, Lisbon, under a red warning until Monday night. Two-thirds of the country was on high alert for wildfires and extreme heat.

On the island of Sicily, firefighters tackled 15 blazes on Saturday alone.

Scientists warn that climate change is intensifying the heat.

“Heatwaves in the Mediterranean have become more frequent and more intense in recent years,” Emanuela Piervitali of Italy’s Institute for Environmental Protection and Research told AFP. “We’ll need to adapt to even higher extremes in the future.”