Grindavik (Iceland) (AFP) – Red hot lava continues flowing from a volcano around 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Iceland’s capital Reykjavik, with plumes of smoke spewing out of the fissure in an uninhabited valley since Wednesday.
Hialeah (United States) (AFP) – Around 100 South Florida police officers carry out an active school shooter drill near Miami. By recreating a scenario they hope they will never have to respond to, local law enforcement assesses its capabilities and prepares for the worst.
Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – President Volodymyr Zelensky says that Russia must take responsibility for an “act of terror”, after Kyiv and Moscow traded blame for strikes at Europe’s largest nuclear plant in Ukraine. “Today, the occupiers have created another extremely risky situation for all of Europe: they struck the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant twice. Any bombing of this site is a shameless crime, an act of terror,” Zelensky says in his daily video address. “Russia must take responsibility for the very fact of creating a threat to a nuclear plant.”
Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Emergency services deploy and people inspect the damage after an Israeli air strike hit a house in the Gaza Strip. Israel continues to shell the enclave as the Palestinian militant group of Islamic Jihad retaliates with a barrage of rocket fire, in the territory’s worst escalation of violence since a war last year.
Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Aerial imagery provided by the Israeli army shows the moment of multiple strikes on a building targeting a senior militant from the Islamic Jihad in Gaza, prompting the militant group to warn Israel has “started a war”.
Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – People in Gaza survey the damage and emergency services deploy after the Israeli army launched multiple air strikes on the Palestinian enclave.
Fagradalsfjall (Iceland) (AFP) – Scientists and curious onlookers admire the “incredible” eruption of a volcanic fissure in an uninhabited valley 40 kilometres to Iceland’s capital Raykjavik. The eruption happened on Wedneseday near the site of the Mount Fagradalsfjall volcano in southwestern Iceland that spewed magma for six months between March and September 2021.
Pontevedra (Spain) (AFP) – Firemen battle against a blaze in the Spanish region of Galicia, where pockets of wilfire threatening the municipalities of Caldas de Reis and Vilagarcia de Arousa continue to break out.
Ourense (Spain) (AFP) – Firemen battle a blaze threatening the Galician towns of Verín and Arbo in Ourense province amid an ongoing heat wave in Spain. Scientists warn that heat waves are becoming more intense and longer-lasting as a result of climate change, making wildfires more likely.
Dalgety (Australia) (AFP) – An astrophysicist examines a charred chunk of space junk jutting out from a paddock in Dalgety — a remote area near Australia’s Snowy Mountains, southwest of Sydney. The debris was originally spotted by an Australian sheep farmer, and has since been confirmed to be part of one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX missions.
Phnom Penh (AFP) – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he hopes Beijing “will not manufacture a crisis or seek a pretext to increase its aggressive military activity,” at a meeting with his counterparts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. China fired ballistic missiles and deployed fighter jets and warships on Thursday as it held its largest-ever military exercises around Taiwan, a show of force sparked by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island.
Hrensko (Czech Republic) (AFP) – Czech firefighters drop water from a helicopter onto the remainders of a wildfire which ripped through the Bohemian Switzerland National Park on the Czech-German border amid record temperatures in late July. Scientists say climate change is making heatwaves around the world more frequent and more intense, increasing the risk of fires.
