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Mauritius raised a cyclone warning alert to maximum on Tuesday as powerful winds and rains from tropical storm Belal caused havoc in the Indian Ocean island nation. The government has ordered all inhabitants to stay indoors, but the meteorological service said the storm was now moving eastwards away from the remote paradise island. Belal has left thousands of people without power, and numerous cars submerged under floodwaters caused by torrential rains or piled up on […]
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — The death toll from a cyclone that lashed northern Mozambique last week has risen to 53, authorities in the northern Nampula province said. The last official toll was 22 but 31 more bodies have been found in Mossuril district in the wake of Cyclone Gombe, local authorities said late Wednesday. The area on the Indian Ocean coast is largely inaccessible now as road links have been disrupted by felled […]
by Nick Perry Agence France-Presse NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP) – Rising sea temperatures and overfishing threaten coral reefs in the western Indian Ocean with complete collapse in the next 50 years, according to a groundbreaking study of these marine ecosystems. The findings, published in the journal Nature Sustainability on Monday, warned that reefs along the eastern coast of Africa and island nations like Mauritius and Seychelles faced a high risk of extinction unless urgent action was […]
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AFP) — Sri Lanka will file negligence and pollution charges against the Greek skipper of an oil tanker that leaked fuel off the island nation’s coast after a week-long fire, authorities said Wednesday. Some of the 1,700 tonnes of heavy fuel oil aboard the New Diamond poured into the Indian Ocean, prompting a large effort to contain a slick that was roughly two kilometres (1.2 miles) in length. Its 270,000-tonne cargo of […]
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AFP) — Sri Lankan military divers fixed a fuel leak from the engine of a fire-damaged oil tanker off the island’s east coast, the navy said Saturday, in a salvage operation after the huge week-long blaze. While the navy says no crude oil has escaped the cargo of the New Diamond, leaked diesel fuel had created a two-kilometre-long slick in the Indian Ocean that was visible from the air. The fuel was seeping […]
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (AFP) — Tanzania and Uganda signed an agreement Sunday to commence construction on a 1,445-kilometre (900 mile) oil pipeline through East Africa that conservation groups say threatens livelihoods and fragile ecosytems. The project focuses on oilfields in landlocked Uganda discovered in 2006 and proposes pumping the crude to the coast via a pipeline across Tanzania at an estimated cost of $3.5 billion. The multi-national plan is led by French petroleum giant […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — The major oil spill caused by a Japanese ship that ran aground in Mauritius may pose a long-term threat to the region’s ecology, including to the Indian Ocean island’s delicate mangroves, Japanese experts said Tuesday. The bulk carrier MV Wakashio crashed into a reef last month spewing more than 1,000 tonnes of oil into pristine waters that are home to mangrove forests and endangered species. After the boat split in two, […]
MAMOUDZOU, France (AFP) — Officials on the small Indian Ocean island of Mayotte said Sunday they had lifted the red alert in place for Cyclone Belna, after it brushed past the French territory. Officials had told islanders to keep off the roads and stay indoors earlier as they declared a red alert in the expectation that the cyclone would hit the island. Island officials have not yet said how much damage the storm caused on […]
by Robin MILLARD Agence France-Presse LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — A mission to explore uncharted depths in the Indian Ocean was launched on Wednesday, hoping to discover hundreds of new species and find out what impact plastic is having way below the surface. The First Descent expedition, led by British-based ocean research institute Nekton, is set to send submersibles as deep as 3,000 meters off the Seychelles from March to test the health of the […]
SAINT-LOUIS, France (AFP) — Stargazers in south and central Africa were treated to a spectacular solar eclipse Thursday with the Moon moving across the Sun to form a “ring of fire”. At the eclipse’s peak, all that was visible was a ring of light encircling the black Moon — but the phenomenon was only fully visible to people in a narrow, 100-kilometer (62-mile) band stretching across central Africa, Madagascar and Reunion. Anyone north, south, east or […]
Ten years after the deadly December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake that triggered a massive tsunami, many communities are still feeling its effects. On December 26, 2004, a magnitude 9.15 earthquake off the coast of Indonesia’s Aceh province triggered an Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 226,306 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other countries. The tsunami garnered an enormous international response, with an estimated $13.6 billion in official aid and private donations pledged for the recovery. In 2009, […]
By Byron Kaye PERTH, Australia Mon Apr 21, 2014 5:48pm EDT (Reuters) – A tropical cyclone was threatening to hamper the search for a missing Malaysian jetliner in a remote stretch of the Indian Ocean on Monday, as a submarine drone neared the end of its mission scouring the sea bed with still no sign of wreckage. The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board, has […]
