Study also suggest humans migrated out of Africa earlier than predicted
More people survived one of the world’s largest volcanic eruptions than previously thought, new research suggests.
The super-eruption 74,000 years ago on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, was 5,000 times bigger than the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980 that killed 57 people and was the most destructive in US history.
There had been a theory that the eruption of Toba in Indonesia was followed by a “volcanic winter” of up to 10 years, leading to a 1,000-year cooling of the Earth, with the near-extinction of our own species.
But archaeologists have found man-made tools dating from before and after the super-eruption, suggesting it was not as apocalyptic as first believed.
Lake Toba, on northern Sumatra, was formed by the volcano's eruption 74,000 years ago ( iStock )
Toba’s eruption was believed to have decimated Asian populations of mammals and hominins – members of the human family tree more closely related to one another than to apes. Of those, only Homo sapiens, to which everyone on Earth belongs, remains today.
The few surviving Homo sapiens in Africa had been thought to have survived by developing sophisticated social, symbolic and economic strategies that enabled them to eventually re-expand and populate Asia 60,000 years ago.
The new study, published in Nature Communications, also suggests Homo sapiens were present in Asia earlier than expected.
Scientists looked at records of rocks up to 80,000 years old at Dhaba in the Son Valley in northern India.
Stone tools uncovered in the rocks indicate that Middle Palaeolithic tool-using populations were there before and after 74,000 years ago.
The researchers say their findings also support fossil evidence that humans migrated out of Africa and expanded across Eurasia before 60,000 years ago.
And the evidence supports genetic findings that humans interbred with archaic species of hominins, such as Neanderthals.
Lead author Chris Clarkson, of the University of Queensland, said: “Populations at Dhaba were using stone tools that were similar to the toolkits being used by Homo sapiens in Africa at the same time.
“The fact that these toolkits did not disappear at the time of the Toba super-eruption or change dramatically soon after indicates that human populations survived the so-called catastrophe and continued to create tools to modify their environments.”
Jagannath Pal, principal investigator from the University of Allahabad in India, said: “Although Toba ash was first identified in the Son Valley back in the 1980s, until now we did not have associated archaeological evidence, so the Dhaba site fills in a major chronological gap.”
A volcano in the Philippines has begun spewing lava, as authorities warn that a "hazardous eruption" is possible "within hours or days".
In the early hours of Monday weak lava began flowing out of Taal volcano - located some 70km (45 miles) south of the capital Manila.
It comes after it emitted a huge plume of ash, triggering the mass evacuation of 8,000 people from the area.
Weak lava has began flowing out of the Taal volcano
Taal is the Philippines' second most active volcano.
Situated on an island in the middle of a lake, it is one of the world's smallest volcanoes and has recorded at least 34 eruptions in the past 450 years.
Authorities in the surrounding province, Batangas, have declared a "state of calamity", signifying major disruption.
"Taal volcano entered a period of intense unrest... that progressed into magmatic eruption at 02:49 to 04:28... this is characterised by weak lava fountaining accompanied by thunder and flashes of lightning," the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said in a statement.
But Phivolcs director Renato Solidum said that signs of a hazardous eruption, including "flows of ashes, rocks, gas at speeds of more than 60 kph horizontally" had not yet occurred, according to CNN Philippines.
Phivolcs has now raised the alert level from 3 to 4, out of a maximum of 5.
Cars, buildings and roads have been left covered in ash
Authorities have also warned of a possible "volcanic tsunami", which can be trigged by falling debris after an eruption, pushing the water and generating waves.
'Covered in ash'
On Sunday, the volcano emitted a giant plume of ash, with rumbling sounds and tremors also reported.
A total of 75 earthquakes have occurred in the Taal region, with 32 of these earthquakes ranking 2 and higher on the earthquake intensity scale, said Phivolcs.
The Official United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said more than 450,000 people are estimated to live within the 14km danger zone of the Taal volcano.
Over 450,000 people are estimated to be residing within the 14 km danger zone of the Taal Volcano. On 12 January, alert level 4 was raised and surrounding towns were evacuated. As of 6 a.m. today, @NDRRMC_OpCen reports that over 7,700 people are in 38 evacuation centres. pic.twitter.com/td0Yj0S6Cj
Ash fell on several areas nearby with residents advised to wear masks. One resident in metro Manila said shops had begun to run out of masks.
"When I went to my car, I saw it was covered in ash. I hurriedly went to buy a mask from a drugstore but they had run out," Angel Bautista, a resident of Paranaque told Reuters.
The government has warned retailers not to hike mask prices amid the surging demand.
'Grey and lifeless'
By Howard Johnson, BBC News, Tagaytay, Philippines
As we approached the Taal volcano area this morning we saw local residents shovelling thick wet ash from the roads. Pineapple groves, normally verdant and luscious, now looked grey and lifeless.
In the distance Taal continued to billow ash and smoke miles into the sky. As the morning went on the ash clouds became darker.
Police manning a 14km exclusion zone stopped people from travelling into the area close to the volcano, but there was a steady flow of cars and trucks moving out.
On the back of one pick-up truck, I saw a large family with their treasured household possessions. They were moving in the direction of the Philippine capital Manila, where many people are choosing to stay with relatives.
The volcanic ash also forced Manila's international airport to suspend all flights on Sunday. Phivolcs had warned that the "airborne ash and ballistic fragments from the eruption... posed hazards to aircrafts".
The Civil Aviation Authority announced later on Monday that it had resumed "partial operations" as of 10:00 local time (02:00 GMT) for flights departing the airport and 12:00 for arrivals.
The Philippine stock exchange also announced it would halt all trading on Monday.
President Rodrigo Duterte's office has also ordered the suspension of government work in Manila and the closure of all schools in the capital.
Ash from the Taal volcano has affected thousands of residents in nearby areas
Earthquakes and volcanic activity are not uncommon in the Philippines, which lies along the Ring of Fire - a zone of major seismic activity, which has one of the world's most active fault lines.
Taal: 'A very dangerous volcano'
The active volcano is at the centre of the 230 sq km Lake Taal, formed by prehistoric eruptions
Taal is a "complex volcano", which means it doesn't have one vent or cone but several eruption points that have changed over time
The head of Phivolcs calls Taal "a volcano within a volcano" and says as such it is "very dangerous"
Taal has erupted in different ways more than 30 times in the past 500 years - most recently in 1977
A 1911 eruption killed about 1,500 people. A 1974 eruption lasted several months
Snow-capped, symmetrically cone-shaped and awe-inspiringly tall, Mount Fuji has for centuries provided Japanese with something of a spiritual backbone, attracting hundreds of thousands of climbers every year.
But often overshadowed by its beauty is the fact that the mountain straddling Shizuoka and Yamanashi prefectures is an active volcano with a history of frequent blasts — hence its nickname as the “department store” of eruptions.
Experts say the precise timing of the next big one is unpredictable, but one Japanese volcanologist paints an urgent picture of the situation.
“Mount Fuji is on standby for the next eruption,” said Hiroki Kamata, a professor of volcanology at Kyoto University.
More than 300 years, he pointed out, have elapsed since the last eruption in 1707, an eerily long silence that surpasses the previous interval of around 200 years.
“It was long gearing up for another blast, but shaken by the Great East Japan Earthquake (that struck the Tohoku region in 2011), it is more unstable than ever. If that doesn’t make the eruption imminent, I don’t know what will.”
If Mount Fuji were to erupt, it could cause up to ¥2.5 trillion in damage. | KYODO
The 1707 blast is known as the Hoei Eruption, named after the Japanese era at the time. It spewed a massive amount of volcanic ash that annals show wafted all the way to today’s Tokyo.
Should the mountain erupt again, cinders could rain down on parts of nearby cities such as Gotemba in Shizuoka, with potentially life-threatening results, according to a council of central and local government officials tasked with hammering out safety measures in the event of an eruption. An economic loss of up to ¥2.5 trillion is expected, the council says.
It is the arrival of volcanic ash, however, that experts say could paralyze Tokyo and its surrounding metropolitan areas.
Ash is forecast to drift to the east due to the westerlies blowing over the archipelago and travel past Tokyo all the way to Chiba, according to simulated data published by a government task force in March last year.
That would wreak havoc on high-tech Tokyo, possibly causing blackouts, water shortages and malfunctions of electronic appliances as well as disrupting telecommunications, according to the task force. Trains might be suspended, too.
Airport terminals will be forced to shut down, it said, if runway markings are covered with ash. Health problems might also arise, with the inhalation of ash likely to cause a “strong sense of discomfort.”
Given the 1707 Hoei Eruption was likely triggered by a magnitude 8.6 earthquake that struck south-central Japan 49 days earlier, Kamata believes there is a high likelihood that a magnitude 9 Nankai Trough earthquake — should it happen in the near future as forecast by the government — would do the same.
But Takayoshi Iwata, director of the Center for Integrated Research and Education of Natural Hazards at Shizuoka University, offered a more nuanced view.
“It’s true that history has shown eruptions can be caused by earthquakes, but there were also times Mount Fuji erupted of its own accord, so it’s not necessarily the case there is a correlation with quakes,” he said.
Up to two dozen people missing after eruption of country’s most active volcano cone
Police in New Zealand have said they do not expect to find any more survivors from a volcanic eruption on White Island that killed at least five people and injured up to 20.
“No signs of life have been seen at any point,” police said after rescue helicopters and other aircraft had carried out a number of aerial reconnaissance flights over the island following the eruption on Monday afternoon. “Police believe that anyone who could have been taken from the island alive was rescued at the time of the evacuation.”
Up to two dozen people remain unaccounted for, and officers are “urgently” working to confirm the exact number of those who have died, a police statement said.
Unstable conditions, toxic gases and ash fall prevented rescue teams from searching the island – which lies 30 miles from the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, in the Bay of Plenty – on foot.
The country’s most active cone volcano erupted at 2.11pm on Monday, sending up a huge plume of ash that was visible from the North Island.
Police said about 50 people were on the island at the time, more than 20 of whom were Australian tourists. Twenty-three people have been rescued. All of those rescued had sustained injuries, mostly burns, police said, and seven people who were in a critical condition had been flown to hospitals in Tauranga and Auckland.
The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, who visited the nearby coastal town of Whakatāne on Monday evening, said the situation was “significant and evolving”.
John Tims, the deputy police commissioner of district operations, said at least two dozen people remained on the island, but he could not be sure of the exact number. “The physical environment is unsafe for us to return to the island,” he said.
Ardern said she was liaising closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and police confirmed that those missing on the island were New Zealanders and foreign nationals.
The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, confirmed Australians had been “caught up” in the eruption and offered emergency support.
Kevin O’Sullivan, the chief executive officer of the New Zealand Cruise Association, said a tour party of 30 to 38 people from the Ovation of the Seas was touring White Island when the eruption took place, and the party had not returned. Their names and nationalities were being given to the police, he said. The ship would remain in Tauranga port at least overnight.
Royal Caribbean, which owns the Ovation of the Seas, asked for “prayers” to be said for all involved.
Ardern said police were unable to land on the island due to the danger of another eruption and dangerous, unstable conditions on the ground.
Terrible tragedy on White Island, an active volcano 🌋 off NZ coast. My thoughts are with family of deceased & all injured & traumatised by the sudden eruption. Having walked to the crater on the island, I can well imagine the terror of what happened. https://t.co/Wlc5IaBVmX
Michael Schade, an American tourist, had just returned from the crater to a tour boat with his parents when the volcano erupted. When their boat returned to pick up survivors, some were in shock, and others burned “to different levels of severity”, he said.
“We were all busy the entire time, just trying to stay out of the way of people who knew what they were doing and also just to help out wherever we could,” he said of the return trip.
Passengers handed over jackets and shirts, eye drops and water, and a human chain was formed to refill bottles so the injured could pour it on their burns.
Dr Ken Glairdhill, of GNS Science, said the volcano was unpredictable.
“It was not a particularly big eruption,” he said. “It was almost like a throat-clearing eruption.
“It showed increased activity for the last few weeks, so we raised the alert level.”
A level four alert was issued for the volcano, also known by its Māori name Whakaari, indicating a “moderate volcanic eruption” was possible, according to the science agency GeoNet. The scale runs from zero to five – a major eruption.
St John Ambulance treated at least 20 people who were injured, with ambulance officers travelling to the island with the coast guard and seven helicopters, which had been dispatched with paramedics on board.
A spokeswoman initially said the service’s medical director would establish a triage unit on the island when he arrived, but this later proved to be impossible.
Tourists walking near the volcano’s crater on Monday. Photograph: GNS Science/AP
A damaged helicopter shown in footage of the island belonged to Volcanic Air, a tour company based in Rotorua. The pilot and four passengers were unharmed and returned to the mainland via boat on Monday afternoon, a company spokesman said.
“Volcanic Air has confirmed it had a helicopter on Whakaari/White Island at the time it erupted this afternoon,” a spokesman said. “Five people had flown to the island in the helicopter, but all are accounted for and have arrived back in Whakatane by boat.”
Footage taken from the volcano’s crater camera appeared to show people in the area minutes before it erupted.
About 10,000 people a year visit the volcano.
The civil defence authority warned that the situation was hazardous “in the immediate vicinity of the volcano”, which is 48km off the coast of the Bay of Plenty. After the eruption the police blocked streets close to the sea, and the MetService weather agency warned pilots to avoid the area.
White Island last experienced a short-lived eruption in 2016, in which no one was hurt.
Geological hazard trackers GeoNet had registered moderate volcanic unrest on the island for weeks before Monday’s eruption.
Indonesia says it will build a new warning system capable of detecting tsunamis caused by undersea landslides, days after giant waves triggered by a volcano killed at least 429 people.
Installation of the new structure of buoys would start next year, a government agency told the BBC.
It is thought that activity by the Anak Krakatau volcano set off undersea landslides, causing Saturday's tsunami.
Officials say some 150 people are still missing and 16,000 have been displaced.
Rescue workers, helped by heavy lifting equipment, are going from village to village, sifting through the debris looking for survivors in badly hit areas on the islands of Sumatra and Java.
How will the new system work?
The new mechanism would work by detecting the size of waves, Iyan Turyana, a spokesman for the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology, told the BBC's Indonesian service.
The existing technology failed to predict the tsunami that devastated coastal towns around the Sunda Strait, between the islands of Sumatra and Java.
The system has been set up to monitor earthquakes, but not undersea landslides and volcanic eruptions, which can also generate deadly waves.
Due to lack of funds, vandalism to the buoys and technical faults, there have been no operational tsunami warning buoys since 2012.
But experts say that even if there had been buoys near the volcano, there warning time would have been minimal, given how close Anak Krakatau is to the shoreline.
Coastal residents near the volcano have been warned to keep away from beaches amid fears continued volcanic eruptions of Anak Krakatau could trigger a new tsunami.
What is the situation on the ground?
Rescue efforts have been hampered by blocked roads and heavy rain, the BBC's Sameer Hashmi in Banten reports.
There are concerns that contaminated water could spread diseases, our correspondent adds.
Food, water, blankets and medical aid are slowly reaching remote areas, and thousands of people are in tents and temporary shelters like mosques or schools.
"Everybody is still in a state of panic," Atmadja Suhar, official in the city of Labuan, told Reuters news agency. "We often have disasters, but not as bad as this... God willing we will rebuild."
The tsunami struck at 21:30 local time (14:30 GMT) during a local holiday, with few of the warning signals that might have come had it been generated by an earthquake.
The waves destroyed hundreds of buildings, sweeping away cars and uprooting trees in several popular tourist destinations, including the Tanjung Lesung beach resort in west Java.
One of the most shocking and heart-rending stories to have emerged is that of rock band Seventeen, who were performing in the resort when waves came crashing through the stage and swept them away.
How common are tsunamis in Indonesia?
Some residents in the Pandeglang region ran to a local mosque after the tsunami hit
Indonesia is prone to tsunamis because it lies on the Ring of Fire - the line of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that circles virtually the entire Pacific Rim.
In September, more than 2,000 people died when a powerful earthquake struck just off the central Indonesian island of Sulawesi, setting off a tsunami that engulfed the coastal city of Palu.
On 26 December 2004, a series of huge waves triggered by a powerful earthquake in the Indian Ocean killed about 228,000 people in 13 countries, mostly in Indonesia.
However, tsunamis caused by volcanic activity like this are less frequent.
Krakatoa (Krakatau in Indonesian)
In August 1883, Krakatoa underwent one of the most violent volcanic eruptions in recorded history:
Massive tsunamis with waves of up to 41m killed more than 30,000 people
Thousands more were killed by hot ash
The eruptions were equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT - about 13,000 times the nuclear yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945
The eruptions were heard thousands of kilometres away
World temperatures dropped by more than 1C the following year
The volcanic island virtually disappeared
Anak Krakatau emerged in 1927 from the caldera that was formed during the eruption of Krakatoa
Deadly wave triggered by combination of underwater landslides and full moon
At least 43 people died and another 584 were injured when a tsunami hit the Indonesian coast, according to government officials.
The wave is thought to have been caused by underwater landslides following an eruption of Mount Anak Krakatau, also known as “Child of Krakatoa”.
Indonesia’s disaster management agency said it was still investigating the incident late on Saturday.
Footage of the eruption of Mount Anak Krakatau, also known as 'Child of Krakatoa'
“The impact of the tsunami that hit the coast around the Sunda Strait, especially in Pandenglang District, South Lampung and Serang continues to increase,” said spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.
“The cause of the tsunami is still being investigated. It was possibly caused by underwater landslides due to eruption of Mount Anak Krakatau and tidal waves due to the full moon.
“The two combinations caused a sudden tsunami that hit the coast.”
Dozens of vehicles and buildings including a hotel have been damaged by the tsunami. The affected areas include Tanjung Lesung Beach, Sumur Beach, Teluk Lada Beach, Panimbang Beach, and Carita Beach.
The motorway connecting to the area Serang-Pandeglang, was cut off.
Mr Nugroho said the casualty total was likely to rise but urged the community to “remain calm and not be provoked by misleading issues.”
Data sementara dampak tsunami di Pantai di Kab Pandeglang, Serang dan Lampung Selatan hingga 23/12/2018 pukul 04.30 WIB: tercatat 20 orang meninggal dunia, 165 orang luka-luka, 2 orang hilang dan puluhan bangunan rusak. Data korban kemungkinan masih akan terus bertambah. pic.twitter.com/6f7buuoD5Y
Mobile phone footage published online shows people trying to flee to safety as the wave rushes through a building.
It comes after nearly 2,000 people were killed by an earthquake and tsunami which struck Sulawesi island on 28 September.
The original Krakatoa volcano was destroyed during a huge eruption in 1883 but the name is still used for the group of islands that remained, including Mount Anak Krakatau.
The Kilauea eruption has wiped out rare sites and whole ecosystems. As the island mourns a tragedy, it also accepts the brutal cycle of nature
In Puna, the area of Hawaii island that’s been hardest hit by the Kilauea volcano eruption, those who lived nearest to the lava flows watched the forest around their homes begin to die first. They said the fruit trees, flowers and ferns began turning brown, languishing in the noxious, sulfur-dioxide-filled air. Then the lava came. Now large swaths of formerly verdant forest has been replaced by rough and barren volcanic terrain.
“Before the eruptions, that area was probably the best forest left in the state of Hawaii,” said Patrick Hart, a biology professor at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. “There were areas where the native Ohia forest extended right up to the ocean, and you just don’t see that in the rest of Hawaii,” he said. Now it’s covered with 20 to 30ft of lava.
On Hawaii island, also known as the Big Island, lava from the weeks-long eruption of the Kilauea volcano has also paved over tide pools and coral gardens, boiled a 400-year-old lake until it evaporated and killed a number of sea creatures.
But to scientists, it’s just part of life on the state’s youngest island, where land is still being created as lava continuously reshapes the natural environment.
“From a human point of view, what’s happening is tragic,” said David Damby, a volcanologist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS). “But from the volcano’s point of view, that’s the job she does: to build new land and change the landscape. That’s the way the earth works.”
The humid, rainy forests in Puna were an important habitat for native Hawaiian trees, birds and insects, Hart said. Chartreuse-colored ‘amakihis and bright red ‘apapanes rested on trees, Hawaiian hawks soared through the air, and dragonflies, butterflies and crickets all made the forest their home.
Before the lava: tropical forests in Puna, Hawaii
It will likely take at least 100 years for the decimated tracts of lava-covered forest to begin again – first with lichen, then with native ferns and Ohia trees that have adapted to grow on lava. In 150 years, Hart said, the land could begin to resemble a forest like the one that used to be there. It’s a process that has happened many times before on Hawaii.
“It’s a very powerful thing to witness,” said Ryan Perroy, a volcanologist and associate professor at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. “But in geological terms, it’s also not an unexpected event. This is how Puna was built, with volcanic eruptions.”
Elsewhere in Puna, there have been other dramatic changes to the landscape. On the morning of 2 June, lava poured into Green Lake. Plumes of steam began rising from the popular swimming spot where depths reached about 200ft; in less than two hours, the 400-year-old freshwater lake was gone – evaporated and covered in lava.
An arial photo show Green Lake, which was boiled away by lava
Just days later, rivers of lava flowed into nearby Kapoho Bay, destroying hundreds of homes and paving over the turquoise, coral-filled bay and a series of rare, protected tide pools that had teemed with marine life.
There was no place like Kapoho in all of Hawaii
John Burns, scientist
“Kapoho Bay was a very important recreational place for people in this area,” said Steven Colbert, an associate professor in marine science at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. “There aren’t a lot of places here where you can access the shoreline and get in the water easily. And this was one of those areas. It was also a very important research spot for us scientists.”
Before: the Kapoho Bay tide pools as they used to be
The tide pools at Kapoho Bay, Colbert said, were home to thriving coral and abundant fish – especially small ones that found safe haven from predators in the protected environment. When the lava entered the ocean there, much of the marine life was covered or boiled alive.
“For the animals right there when the lava reaches the water, they don’t have a chance,” he said.
In the meantime, the surrounding water will need to clear, but that won’t happen until the eruption slows or stops.
“It’s gone from beautiful Hawaiian water that is clear and turquoise, where you can see 50 to 60ft down, to a muddy mess filled with volcanic glass particles,” he said. “It blots out the sunlight so normal algae can’t grow, and filter feeders like coral have to sort between bits of food and volcanic particles.”
After: an aerial view of the Kapoho Bay, including the tide pools, which is now covered in fresh lava
The loss to scientists has been great. “There was no place like Kapoho in all of Hawaii,” said John Burns, who spent a decade studying coral in the tide pools, said. “That entire habitat is gone now.” Once the glassy volcanic particles dissipate and the PH and temperature of the water returns to normal, he said, the coral can begin to regrow. But it will be starting from scratch, just as part of that area did when it was formed by lava in the 1950s and 1960s. How fast the coral regrow will depend on whether the lava creates a sloping coastline, or protected pools like it did in Kapoho, which can allow for faster growth than the usual rate of one centimeter per-year.
“In terms of marine organisms and coral, we’re basically starting from day one now.” And yet, he said, it’s easier to lose an irreplaceable reef to lava than it is to lose it to bleaching, which has happened in many places in Hawaii because of a global rise in ocean temperatures.
“There’s the tragedy of people losing their homes and for us, as scientists, losing our research site. But from the perspective of the environment, this is a natural cycle,” he said. “I’d much rather see a reef die from lava than from bleaching.”
The population of mountain gorillas, one of the world’s most endangered species, which survives on the forest-cloaked volcanoes of central Africa, has increased by a quarter to over 1,000 individuals since 2010, wildlife authorities said.
That is despite the threat posed by poachers and armed groups in the Virunga Massif, a spine of volcanic mountains in the western Rift Valley straddling eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Rwanda, where most of them reside.
The latest census put them at 1,004 individuals: 604 in Virunga, and 400 in Uganda’s nearby Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Joel Wenga Malembe, spokesman for the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature, told Reuters.
The last survey, in 2010, found just 786 of this critically endangered eastern gorilla sub-species, of which 480 were in Virunga.
Gihishamwotzi, 18, an endangered silverback high mountain gorilla from
Sabyinyo family, rests atop trees inside the forest in the Volcanoes
National Park near Kinigi, northwestern Rwanda, January 9, 2018.
REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya/File Photo
“These numbers are truly remarkable, far exceeding our expectations, and are the result of a collaborative, three-country effort with governments and partners all playing an important role,” Mike Cranfield, of charity Gorilla Doctors, said in a statement.
Partly because they are so rare, the mountain gorillas are a major source of tourist revenue for the three nations, and their habitat supports other rare species found nowhere else such as golden monkeys.
But they are under constant threat of encroachment by farmers in one of Africa’s most densely populated rural regions, and hunting for bush meat or bizarre trophies sold abroad.
Congo has also invited oil companies to start drilling in Virunga, Africa’s largest tropical rainforest reserve, which conservationists worry will put the environment in greater danger.
Adding to Virunga’s woes, rangers banned tourists this month from entering the park during investigations into the kidnapping of two Britons by an armed militia.
A bicycle belonging to a cycle hire scheme in New Zealand has been found at the bottom of a crater of a dormant volcano.
The New Zealand Herald says that the bike, belonging to Auckland's OnzO scheme, was spotted on Mount Eden (or Maungawhau in the Maori language) by a local who was out taking a walk.
Mount Eden is Auckland's highest natural point, and last erupted some 28,000 years ago. While there's absolutely no danger from volcanic activity, a photographer from the Herald said that "the area was muddy and slippery and it would have taken a lot of effort to get the bike down there and [to] get back up".
OnzO spokesperson Min Kyu Jung was less than impressed with the find, saying "Obviously we discourage people from leaving bikes where they shouldn't be".
Maungawhau, otherwise known as Mount Eden, an unlikely place to leave a bicycle
It's not the first time that OnzO have run into problems recovering abandoned bicycles. According to the Stuff news website, staff have had a task recovering the distinctive black and yellow single-speed bikes from the harbour, up trees, and over the internet where they have been listed for sale.
Unlike older urban bicycle hire systems, OnzO's bikes do not rely on docking stations, but require a phone app to unlock the cycle's rear wheel, meaning they can be picked up or dropped off anywhere.
Speaking in the weeks after the service's launch late last year, OnzO's Bruce Qin said that teething troubles - such as people "hoarding" bikes or leaving them in difficult-to-reach places - were being ironed out.
The bike's rear wheel is immobilised when not in use
"As a new thing into the country, OnzO has patience for people to learn the concept of 'shared'," Mr Qin said.
But, according to the NZ Herald, patience with pranksters is wearing thin, with the company planning to cut off access to the bikes to people who abuse the system.
A woman who survived the Guatemala volcano eruption said she believes her family was buried in the disaster.
Volcan de Fuego, whose name means "Volcano of Fire", devastated three towns over the weekend in the Central American country, killing at least 25 people.
Consuelo Hernandez was filmed covered in ash as she walked down a road, fearful that her entire family had been buried by the eruption.
"Not everyone escaped. I think they were buried," she told the camera man.
When asked how she survived, she said: "Because we saw the lava pouring through the corn fields and we ran towards the hill."
The volcano suffered a vulcanian eruption - a violent and sudden volcanic blast which often throws large amounts of debris into the air and is accompanied by fast-moving lava flows.
Rescue agencies estimate that at least 300 people have been injured, with the blast raining ash down on the country's nearby capital of Guatemala City, forcing the international airport to close.
One video taken near the disaster showed dead bodies lying on top of the pyroclastic flow. Rescue workers have been searching for survivors and have evacuated more than 3,000 people from their homes.
The Fuego Volcano in eruption, seen from Alotenango municipality (AFP/Getty Images)
Sergio Cabañas, head of the country's National Disaster Management Agency (Conred), said his agency has been unable to reach one affected village due to the lava flow.
He told a local radio station: "Unfortunately El Rodeo was buried and we haven't been able to reach the La Libertad village because of the lava and maybe there are people that died there too."
Several children and workers from the Conred agency are among the dead, Mr Cabañas added.
Guatemala's president Jimmy Morales said he is considering declaring a state of emergency due to the disaster, with rescue agencies warning that heavy rains could cause mudslides in the coming days due to the eruption.
Eddy Sánchez, director of the National Institute for Seismology, Vulcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology of Guatemala, has warned the volcano is still in an active state, and has advised local people to stay off the roads.
Volcan de Fuego is one of the most active volcanos in Central America, with the recent eruption being the largest it has experienced since 1974.
President considers declaring state of emergency in region as smoke and ash forces closure of capital’s La Aurora airport
At least 25 people, including three children, have been killed and nearly 300 injured on Sunday in the most violent eruption of Guatemala’s Fuego volcano in more than four decades, officials said.
Fuego volcano, whose name means “fire” in English, spewed an 8km (five-mile) stream of lava and belched a thick plume of black smoke and ash that rained onto the capital and other regions.
Sergio Cabanas, the general secretary of Guatemala’s Conred disaster agency, said on the radio: “It’s a river of lava that overflowed its banks and affected the Rodeo village. There are injured, burned and dead people.”
Mario Cruz, spokesman for the volunteer firefighter corps, said: “We have seven confirmed dead, four adults and three kids, who were already taken to the morgue.” He added that 3,100 people had evacuated the area so far. The disaster agency later updated the death toll to 25.
President Jimmy Morales said he had convened his ministers and was considering declaring a state of emergency in the departments of Chimaltenango, Escuintla and Sacatepequez.
It is the second time the volcano has erupted this year, setting off loud explosions and spewing ash into the sky. Soot blanketed cars and houses in the nearby villages of San Pedro Yepocapa and Sangre de Cristo.
A policeman carries an elderly evacuee in Alotenango, 55 km southwest of Guatemala City Photograph: Orlando Estrada/AFP/Getty Images
Lesser amounts of ash fell on Guatemala City, which is 44km (27 miles) from the volcano. The capital’s La Aurora international airport to shut down its only runway.
Workers and guests were evacuated from the La Reunion golf club. A video circulating on social media showed a black cloud of ash rising from just beyond the golf club.
The huge plumes of smoke that could be seen from various parts of the country and the ash that rained down in four of Guatemala’s departments caused some alarm among residents.
Officials asked residents to remain calm. “It is important to remain calm because the Fuego volcano erupts throughout the year,” said David de Leon, spokesman for the National Disaster Prevention Authority.
De Leon said a change in wind was to blame for the volcanic ash falling on parts of the city.
Eddy Sanchez, the director of Guatemala’s seismological, volcanic and meteorological institute, warned of the danger of mud flows, saying: “Temperatures in the pyroclastic flow can exceed 700 degrees [Celsius] and volcanic ash can rain down on a 15km (9.32-mile) radius. That could cause more mud flows and nearby rivers to burst their banks.”
After surviving earthquakes and molten lava, residents of Hawaii's Big Island now have new threats to worry about: steam-driven explosions, hazardous volcanic smog and acid rain.
The US Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory on Wednesday warned of possible explosive eruptions in the coming weeks. That could happen because as lava continues to sink in a lake inside a Kilauea crater, an influx of groundwater could interact with the lava to create steam explosions.
Those forces would emit "ballistic projectiles" -- as small as pebbles or weighing up to several tons. The agencies also said ash clouds would rise to greater elevations, dispensing ash over wider areas.
"At this time, we cannot say with certainty that explosive activity will occur, how large the explosions could be, or how long such explosive activity could continue," an advisory said.
Gov. David Ige asked President Donald Trump to issue a disaster declaration for Hawaii as a result of the ongoing earthquakes and volcano eruption, according to a press release.
The declaration allows federal funds to begin to flow to state and local efforts in Hawaii. The estimated cost to protect residents over the next 30 days is expected to exceed $2.9 million, according to the governor's office.
A brief explosion Wednesday on a Kilauea crater was the result of falling rocks and not the interaction of lava with the water table, the USGS said.
The Kilauea eruption last week created new volcanic vents on the ground miles east of the summit, releasing slow-moving lava and toxic gas into island communities.
Officials have warned of dangerous levels of sulfur dioxide gas.
If winds weaken, that gas and other volcanic pollutants can settle easily with moisture and dust to create a haze called volcanic smog, or "vog," with tiny sulfuric acid droplets that can pose respiratory problems, according to the US Geological Survey.
Trade winds could weaken Thursday and Friday, meaning the vog that's largely been accumulating over the ocean south of the Big Island could pool over a larger portion of it, creating possible health hazards, the National Weather Service says.
And with high chances of rain on those days, sulfuric acid droplets would fall, creating another menace known as acid rain, CNN meteorologist Michael Guy says.
Respiratory problems
At higher concentrations, vog can cause headaches and irritation to the lungs and eyes, the University of Hawaii at Hilo says.
"Because of their small size, aerosol particles such as those in vog penetrate deep into the human lung and are readily retained," the USGS says.
High levels of acidic particles in vog "can induce asthma attacks, especially in adolescents, and can also impede the ability of the upper respiratory tract to remove other potentially harmful particles," it says.
For people with asthma and other respiratory problems, "the effects are much more serious, causing a tightening of the airways in the lungs and making it very difficult to breathe," the university says.
But it adds: "There's been no clear evidence that vog causes lingering damage to normally healthy individuals."
If trade winds become lighter as predicted later this week, vog could pool northward over parts of the island by Friday, the weather service says.
But winds are forecast to return -- and the vog could be pushed off much of the island -- by Friday night, it says.
Similar to battery acid
If it rains where vog has collected, acid rain would result.
"Wherever you have a vog plume, you're going to have acid rain, if it's raining," University of Hawaii meteorologist Steven Businger told CNN affiliate Hawaii News Now.
Army National Guard First Lt. Aaron Hew Len measures sulfur dioxide gas Tuesday in Leilani Estates.
What are the effects of acid rain? The droplets of sulfuric acid in vog have the corrosive properties of diluted battery acid, the USGS says.
"When atmospheric moisture is abundant, these droplets combine with it and fall as acid rain, damaging plants and accelerating the rusting of metal objects such as cars, industrial and farm equipment, and building components," it says.
The amount of acid rain depends on the concentration of sulfur dioxide in the air, CNN's Guy says.
Determining how acid rain affects human health is complicated, and Guy says the effects on the skin are unclear.
One direct, immediate threat is not the rain, but rather breathing in the particles in the vog -- the very pollutants that caused the acid rain, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
"Walking in acid rain, or even swimming in a lake affected by acid rain, is no more dangerous to humans than walking in normal rain or swimming in non-acidic lakes," the EPA says.
But acid rain can contaminate household water supplies by leaching metals from building and plumbing materials, the USGS says.
That includes rooftop rainwater-catchment systems that Hawaii residents use for drinking water.
"In 1988, the drinking water of nearly 40% of homes using such systems in the Kona Districts of the island was found to be contaminated with lead leached by acid rain," the USGS says. "Tests confirmed that the blood of some residents of these homes had elevated lead levels."
Businger told Hawaii News Now that acid rain is not an immediate health hazard, adding that it's "the least of their (residents) worries."
More vents open
Other dangers persist, not only in the form of lava but also earthquakes and newly formed cracks.
Two additional volcanic vents -- the 13th and 14th -- erupted Tuesday in the Leilani Estates area, where roughly 1,700 residents were asked to evacuate last week. At least 36 structures -- including at least 26 homes -- have been destroyed.
On Wednesday, a 15th vent formed -- this one in the Lanipuna subdivision, the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency says.
Residents were being still allowed to check on their properties from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day but must be prepared to leave at a moment's notice, the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency says. (Source: CNN)
Here’s what scientists and native Hawaiians see in the sublime molten fire.
There is something remarkable about the lava spurting out of Kilauea, the miles-wide shield volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island that fissured anew last week.
It cuts across roads, forming berms of black and smoldering rock. It bursts from the ground, dancing like bubbles above a cauldron. In one video, it creeps across the land and then devours a Ford Mustang.
So far, the lava has destroyed 35 structures in total, including 25 homes. This current activity may continue for some time: On Tuesday, two new lava fissures opened. One of the new cracks sits uphill of Lanipuna Gardens, a subdivision of 250 people that was evacuated last week but has so far remained unharmed. Hawaii Civil Defense ordered the mandatory evacuation of its last remaining residents Tuesday evening.
Yet numbers don’t get at the potency of the lava, at its otherworldliness. Where other volcanoes sometimes appear powdery or drab, Kilauea’s lava glows red. Other lava hardens soon after it bursts from the ground; Kilauea’s lava remains hot enough to ooze forward, setting cars on fire. In just this episode alone, Kilauea’s energy has torn a new, 2.5-mile-long hole in the ground.
Kilauea volcano’s summit lava lake
Both geoscientists and native Hawaiians agree that Hawaii’s lava is special. But they have different ways of talking about why that is—and different ways of seeing the substance that defines their profession or gives them a home.
For scientists, the defining quality of Hawaii’s lava is its chemistry. It’s what geologists call a basaltic lava, and this affects everything from its color to its hazards.
There are roughly two types of lava—and both types are, of course, runny and hot. Kilauea’s lava is formed by the melting of an oceanic plate, which means that it contains less silicon dioxide—the same mineral that becomes quartz—than continental plates. As such, it’s extremely runny and super hot. It also doesn’t put up much resistance to gases, which can freely pass through it. (When a continental plate melts, you get an eruption more like Mount St. Helens: That lava is stickier, and it often traps gas until it suddenly all escapes at once.)
Mika McKinnon, a geophysicist and disaster researcher, said this gives Hawaii’s lava a special characteristic: It’s “exactly like you imagine hot lava as a kid, leaping between furniture,” she told me in an email. “The geochemistry of Hawaiian lavas means [that it forms] smooth, laminar flow in snaking rivers. It’s also extremely hot, giving it that iconic fiery glow.”
That fiery glow, that childlike quality—it makes sense that some journalists have fallen back on cinema to describe the eruption. Watching videos of Kilauea’s lava, I kept thinking of the first time I ever saw lava on screen: the Cave of Wonders sequence in Disney’s Aladdin. Another science journalist—upon seeing the lava lake at the summit of Kilauea, which has brimmed with molten fire this month—recalled the cracks of Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings.
“Part of why these eruptions look familiar is that it’s easier to safely photograph and record them than faster-moving, more violent eruptions, so these images are the ones we more commonly see in kids’ science books, or inspiring artists when they’re animating movies,” McKinnon told me in an email.
A lava flow crosses Makamae Street in Leilani Estates. (USGS / Reuters)
“Kilauea’s lava is 1,170 degrees Celsius (or 2,140 degrees Fahrenheit) when it erupts, with the surface starting to cool within a few hundred seconds,” she said. “As it cools, it creates a crust that the lava flow breaks through over and over again.”
You can often estimate the temperature of lava by its color, she added. Yellow lava is the hottest, burning somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 degrees Celsius (about 1,830 to 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit). Orange lava smolders between 800 and 1,000 degrees Celsius (about 1,500 to 1,830 degrees Fahrenheit). And red lava is actually the coolest, at 600 to 800 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,100 to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit).
But photographs taken at night are often color-corrected, throwing off this scale, McKinnon warned.
In addition to the many colors of lava, there are several types of lava that can appear during one eruption. “In Hawaiian-style eruptions, you get pahoehoe, the ropey lava that looks like a sticky river when flowing; and a’a, with is the rubbly lava that looks like a tractor-tread of debris moving and tumbling,” said Eric Klemetti, a professor of volcanology at Dennison University, in an email. “Those differ based on things like temperature and crystal contact, as a’a is a stickier lava.”
Scientists turn to precise instruments for their information. Jascha Polet, a geophysicist at California State Polytechnic at Ponoma, said researchers look to two sets of data—from instruments on the volcano itself and from images from satellites in orbit—to learn about Kilauea’s “plumbing system,” its subsurface network of lava tubes and flows.
Scientists use this data to improve their volcanism forecasts, as they try to understand “what types of deformation and seismic signals occur as precursory activity before an eruption,” Polet told me in an email.
But Western scientists were not the first people to encounter Hawaii’s volcanoes. Native Hawaiians have lived on the islands, and among the volcanoes, for more than 900 years. And their history, literature, and culture all recognize the reality of living near such a powerful phenomenon.
(A brief language note: Everyone who lives in the archipelago is called a “Hawaii resident.” The term “Hawaiian” is reserved for someone with native Hawaiian ancestry. This distinction is regularly made on the islands, including in the state constitution.)
“There’s a’a or pahoehoe, the rough lava or the smooth lava,” said Ku’ualoha Ho’omanawanui, a professor of literature at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “But the word for both of them is Pele.”
Pele is the Hawaiian deity of volcanoes, lava, and fire—but deity in its Western sense doesn’t quite describe the scope of Pele’s power. Many Hawaiian families trace their lineage back to Pele, meaning they count her as an ancestor.
“Pele is not just the goddess of lava. Lava is Pele,” Ho’omanawanui told me. “The lava flows basically reaffirm what our literature tells us—that the land is alive, that Pele is alive. When we talk about the lava being alive, it’s a metaphor for the earth itself being alive. The lava is Pele, the magma is Pele, the lava flow and then when the lava hardens—each you can just replace the word with Pele.”
Even the site of the new eruption makes sense within Hawaiian culture. The current eruption has focused primarily on a subdivision called Leilani Estates. But Leilani Estates is a new name, and the subdivision sits within a larger area that Hawaiians traditionally called Keahialaka, which means “the fire of Laka.” Laka is the goddess of hula and one of Pele’s daughters.
“The Hawaiians watching are looking at the names of these places and saying, ‘Oh yeah!’” said Noelani M. Arista, a professor of Hawaiian history at the University of Hawaii. “It’s like, sometimes people are amazed that a flood will hit a flood zone. But we’ve got place names that say flood zone.”
“Anyone can come and slap a new name on any thing: ‘Let’s call it Leilani Estates!’ And Leilani is a generic name. But that won’t take away from the mana, the spiritual power and characteristics of that place, that the old place name embodies,” agreed Ho’omanawanui.
These new names “lull people into a sense of complacency,” she said. “[They think,] I’m not actually buying property and building a house in an active lava rift zone, but I’m buying a piece of paradise.”
A lava fissure crosses the road on Hawaii's Big Island on May 3. (Jeremiah Osuna / Reuters)
But sometimes these new names can be ironic. Kilauea is surrounded by rainforest, and people in Hawaii customarily link its lava flows to the Kool-Aid-red lehua flowers that grow around it. So when Ho’omanawanui read that one of the first lava fissures in Leilani Estates opened up on Mohala Street, she laughed. “Well, of course!” she said. “Mohala means ‘to blossom,’ or ‘to bloom.’ In a way, it’s all interconnected.”
Pele’s story takes many forms—Ho’omanawanui has studied 14 different serialized newspaper versions of it, all of which first appeared in the 19th century. But many describe a similar journey: how Pele and her family came up from an island in the South Pacific, how they found the Hawaii archipelago, and how Pele traveled to every island, looking for a place to keep her fire. She visited every island, and dug a hole in every island, until she eventually found Hawaii Island and placed her fire in Kilauea. (Ho’omanawanui recommended that mainland Americans watch Holo Mai Pele, a PBS-filmed hula about Pele, for a credible summary of her story.)
“The story of Pele is a poetic, literary telling of what scientists would maybe call the Ring of Fire, and how volcanic activity gets to the Hawaiian islands from other parts of the Pacific,” said Ho’omanawanui. “It’s an ideological explanation for why we don’t have volcanic activity occurring now on the other islands.”
But it’s more than a just-so story. Arista, the Hawaiian historian, contrasts how non-native Hawaii residents and native Hawaiians have discussed the recent lava flow. Much of the national media attention has focused on an American-centric understanding of the destruction, she said—for instance, by talking about the extent of property loss.
“But then you’ve got Hawaiians saying, how amazing is the presence of this in my life,” she said. “Native people who live in the subdivision are largely saying, ‘Yes, I knew I was living in this space where volcanic activity is a huge factor, because I’ve lived my life here. And because we have this respect for Pele, I wanted to live here.’”
Ho’omanawanui said she saw many native Hawaiians greeting the lava flow not with dread, but with acceptance. “When the flows start, you clean the house, you open the door, and you say: ‘Tūtū Pele, this is your land, take it,’” she said.
(Since Ho’omanawanui’s family tracks its lineage back to Pele, they call her Tūtū, or grandmother. But other Hawaiians and non-Natives will call her Tūtū Pele out of respect, even if she is not an ancestor to them. “They acknowledge she’s a special force of nature—literally,” she said. Others, including non-Natives, may call her Madame Pele for the same reason.)
A fissure, opening on Luana Street in Leilani Estates, shoots lava 230 feet in the air on May 6. (USGS / Reuters)
Ho’omanawanui and Arista told me that seeing the lava as Pele didn’t detract from the scientific understanding of it. Instead, Pele anchors the experience of the lava, envelops it, and connects it to the lives of people who came before.
“Through dance, through costuming, through specific flowers—there’s layers of representation that I think really evoke a sensory experience beyond just knowledge, beyond just understanding as a Western scientific geological process,” said Ho’omanawanui. “It’s a complete experience that is inclusive of that [scientific] knowledge but goes way beyond it.”
“We don’t have the words for belief or faith in this stuff,” she said. Instead, she said, Westerners should see Hawaiian customary belief as a practice and as a way of understanding the world.
Lately, Hawaiian women who practice hula—including hula about Pele’s story—discuss how thrilling it is to see this real-life, contemporary connection to their art. “[Hula] is a weekly practice,” said Arista, “and that weekly practice stretches for years. So it’s a dance [these women have] come to inhabit and know—and when they watch the volcano erupting now, they can see the movement. They can see what the movement is talking about.”
“There’s a whole class of words that belong to the description of [Pele and her] family, that have to do with fire, anger, heat, and light, and you won’t know them unless you speak and read Hawaiian, and chant, and dance,” she said.
Sometimes the customary understanding can anticipate the scientific view. When Pele makes her journey from the south, she is accompanied by an entourage of family members. These represent all the activity that accompanies an eruption: So one brother may be lightning, several sisters may be the trees and flowers of the rainforest, and several other brothers are sharks.
Scientists now know that lightning can accompany a volcanic eruption. (Researchers successfully recorded volcanic thunder for the first time earlier this year.) But recent research has suggested sharks may sense volcanic lightning and electromagnetic energy with their electroreceptors. This may let them find new volcanoes—and new sources of life, and food—across the ocean.
“When you experience a volcanic eruption at the crater in the mountain, there’s a whole lot of other activity that accompanies it. There are storms that gather, there’s electrical energy in the air. I’ve seen waterspouts form offshore,” said Ho’omanawanui. “From a Western perspective, they all get separated out—they say, look at that lava eruption—and they don’t see all the other stuff that’s happening.”
She added that many geoscientists, who spend days camped on the volcano and apart from civilization, come to see the volcano in this light. “They are often very steeped in their environment—it’s impressive to me,” she said. “It’s really a worldview-changing experience—in how you see the world, the Earth and the universe—to know that you’re really seeing new land being birthed right before your eyes.”
And that’s why many Hawaiians see the latest eruption as a kind of warning, both women told me. As the islands have filled with non-Hawaiian residents, and as these newcomers have run afoul of longstanding custom and of environmental laws, they are misunderstanding and misusing the land.
There’s a story about Pele and a place called Kapa’ahu, which is not so far from Leilani Estates on the Big Island. It tells of how Pele once wrapped herself in a cloak of a’a lava in order to take a nap—the kapa in Kapa’ahu means cloak—and warned her family not to wake her up. Hours later, she was awakened by an incessant, annoying drumbeat. She stalked off to look for it—and she eventually found it, and an alluring male hula leader, on the other side of the archipelago: at Ke’e Beach on Kauai Island.
The most recent eruption of Kilauea was not the first one to devour cars. (InterNetwork Media / Getty)
Kapa’ahu now sits under black, hardened lava, paved over by Kilauea’s eruption a decade ago. And the northern entire section of Kauai was devastated by floods a month ago, part of a rain system that damaged or destroyed more than 500 homes across the state. Many parts of Kauai, including Ke’e Beach, remain largely inaccessible to daily traffic.
“A lot of Hawaiians in my community have been saying that they don’t really see it as a coincidence that, on one end of the archipelago, you have this horrific flooding—and now on the complete opposite end, you have lava flows destroying as well,” said Ho’omanawanui. It seems like Hawaii is declaring its fragility and its power all at once, she said.
Arista, the historian, agreed. “When you look at social media, at the kinds of conversations that Hawaii residents are having, they say: We’ve got floods on one end [of the archipelago], and we’ve got fire on the other. And a lot of local Hawaiians go, yep, that’s what it means to live in these islands.”
“That fire is not a new phenomenon,” she told me. “The flood, on the other hand, might be climate change.”
