Tag: barrier

Virus-hit Wuhan waits for barriers to come down

WUHAN, China (AFP) — A network of makeshift barriers has kept residents walled in their neighborhoods for weeks in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the heart of the coronavirus pandemic. The city of 11 million, where the virus first erupted, became a ghost town after authorities prevented people from leaving on January 23. With thousands of patients swarming hospitals every week, authorities tightened the restrictions in early February, confining people to their homes. Closing off […]

Vinegar offers hope in Barrier Reef starfish battle

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Coral-munching crown-of-thorns starfish can be safely killed by common household vinegar, scientists revealed Thursday in a discovery that offers hope for Australia’s struggling Great Barrier Reef. The predatory starfish is naturally-occurring but has proliferated due to pollution and run-off at the World Heritage-listed ecosystem, which is also reeling from two consecutive years of mass coral bleaching. Until now other expensive chemicals such as bile salts have been used to try and […]

Scientists record biggest ever coral die-off on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

TOWNSVILLE, Australia (Reuters) — Warm seas around Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have killed two-thirds of a 700-km (435 miles) stretch of coral in the past nine months, the worst die-off ever recorded on the World Heritage site, scientists who surveyed the reef said on Tuesday (November 29). Scientists surveyed sites on the Northern Great Barrier Reef in March and April and again at the same sites in October and November and found on average a […]