Zimbabwe: At least 100 elephants die in national park amid drought
At least 100 elephants have died in Zimbabwe’s largest national park amid a drought.
Experts from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) say the elephants died at Hwange National Park due to a lack of water.
The national park, Zimbabwe’s largest, is home to around 45,000 elephants, as well as more than 100 other types of mammals and 400 bird species.
It has 104 solar-powered boreholes to maintain sources of water for the animals.
However, park authorities say there are not enough and the boreholes are no match for extreme temperatures, which are drying up existing waterholes and forcing wildlife to walk long distances searching for food and water.
“The most affected elephants are the young, elderly and sick that can’t travel long distances to find water,” according to Tinashe Farawo, a spokesman for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.
The deaths of the elephants are a sign of what wildlife authorities and conservation groups say is the impact of climate change and the El Nino weather phenomenon.
“El Nino is making an already dire situation worse,” according to Mr Farawo.
Pic: Privilege Musvanhiri/IFAW via AP
El Nino is a natural and recurring weather phenomenon that warms parts of the Pacific, affecting weather patterns around the world.
It occurs every few years, in a cycle with its opposite phenomenon, La Nina, which sees episodes of cooler-than-average sea surface temperature in the equatorial Pacific.
The pattern typically lasts 12 months and peaks in December.
However, studies indicate that climate change may be making El Ninos stronger, leading to more extreme consequences.
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While this year’s El Nino has already brought deadly floods to East Africa, it is expected to cause below-average rainfall across southern Africa.
In Zimbabwe, there has been a recent spell of rising heat and a scarcity of rain. And, while some rain has now fallen, the forecasts are generally for a dry, hot summer ahead.
Authorities fear a repeat of 2019 – another El Nino year – when more than 200 elephants in Hwange died in a severe drought.
Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe is home to 45,000 elephants. Picture from 2018: Edwin Remsberg / VWPics via AP Images
“This phenomenon is recurring,” said Phillip Kuvawoga, a landscape programme director at IFAW, which raised the alarm for Hwange’s elephants in a report this month.
Zimbabwe’s rainy season once started reliably in October and ran through to March.
However, it has become erratic in recent years and conservationists have noticed longer, more severe dry spells.
“Our region will have significantly less rainfall, so the dry spell could return soon because of El Nino,” said Trevor Lane, director of The Bhejane Trust, a conservation group which assists Zimbabwe’s parks agency.
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He said his organisation had been pumping 1.5 million litres of water into Hwange’s waterholes daily from more than 50 boreholes it manages in partnership with park authorities.
Hwange does not have a major river flowing through it and relies on around 100 solar-powered boreholes that pump water for the animals.
An average-sized elephant needs a daily water intake of about 200 litres.
The oldest female elephants remember the locations of water sources they have visited before and can lead their herd hundreds of miles to them.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
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Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
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Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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