AFP

An Italian farm became an open-air morgue earlier this month after around 50 cows were poisoned by young sorghum plants, an accident experts blame on drought.

The Piedmontese cattle on the farm in Sommariva del Bosco, near Turin in northwest Italy, died suddenly due to acute prussic acid poisoning on August 6, according to the local IZS animal welfare body.

This acid comes from dhurrin, which is naturally present in young sorghum plants, although not in the same high concentrations as those found in samples taken at the site.

“We suspect that the drought caused this very large quantity of dhurrin within the sorghum plants,” said Stefano Giantin, a vet at the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale for northwest Italy, who is on the case.

With normal growing plants, the amount of dhurrin would lower as the plants grew larger. But since the ongoing drought has stunted the growth of sorghum plants, dhurrin has concentrated inside them.  

Prussic acid poisoning in cattle is quick and brutal, with symptoms occurring 10-15 minutes after ingestion and death some 15-30 minutes later. It causes respiratory, nervous and muscular disorders.

Dhurrin naturally occurs in sorghum, particularly in young shoots that use it as a defence against herbivores, but when digested, releases prussic acid, also known as hydrogen cyanide.

But “normally, it doesn’t cause death”, Giantin told AFP.

In the samples taken from Sommariva del Bosco, the concentration of dhurrin in the shoots was at an unusually high level, which Giantin said appeared to be the result of the drought that has hit Italy and much of Europe this summer.

A dose of more than 700 mg/kg of prussic acid is considered fatal for cattle, but the animals at Sommariva were found to have quantities of more than 900 mg/kg in their blood.

The only way of saving affected cows is to inject them with sodium thiosulfate, to neutralise the hyrogen cyanide.

With this, experts were able to save around 30 cows on August 11, when three more farms in Piedmont were hit by the same phenomenon — although not before 14 died.

Brutal storms with winds gusting up to 224 kilometres per hour (140 miles per hour) left five people dead on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica early Thursday, including a 13-year-old girl who was killed when a tree fell onto her campground bungalow, authorities said.

It was the third day of intense rains across much of southern France that had produced flash floods and lightning, but left no casualties until now. 

The girl was killed at a campground near Sagone, on the island’s rugged western coast, where nine others were also injured, including one seriously, rescue workers told AFP.

At a nearby beach in Coggia, a 72-year-old woman died after the roof of a beachside hut was blown off and landed on the vehicle she was in, regional authorities said.

“I was woken around 7:30 am by a very huge storm” that knocked out both electricity and mobile phone networks, said Benjamin Roux, a 26-year-old tourist, at the beach near where the woman was killed.

He had been planning to go scuba diving, but instead helped the passengers of a boat who were sleeping aboard when it was suddenly thrown onto the shore by the choppy waves.

“They managed to get out without injuries, but they’re just devastated,” he told AFP.

Further north near the resort of Calvi, a 46-year-old Frenchman was also killed at a campground, and a 23-year-old Italian woman suffered serious injuries while camping nearby.

Maritime authorities later said a fisherman had died near Girolata, and a female kayaker near Erbalunga, north of Bastia.

“Several rescues of pleasure boats” were also undertaken near the capital Ajaccio, said Jean-Jacques Peraldi, head of the SDIS fire and rescue service.

Maritime authorities reported 60 to 70 sea rescue operations, mainly along the western coast that bore the brunt of the overnight storm, which the Meteo France weather service said was now moving towards Italy.

Authorities had urged people to avoid travel and take other precautions after storm alerts were issued Wednesday for several Mediterranean departments, but also along the Normandy coast and near the southeast city of Lyon.

Around 35,000 homes on Corsica remain without electricity, power provider EDF said.

A row has erupted in Cyprus after a community leader threatened to dig up the nests of protected turtles because his village is missing out on land development compensation.

On Thursday the authorities said his “inexcusable” threat would undo decades of conservation efforts if it went ahead.

Yiangos Tsivikos, leader of the Ineia community in the Akamas region in the west of the Mediterranean island, posted a video on YouTube on Wednesday saying he would dig up turtle nests on the nearby Lara beach.

He claimed that nest markings there were fake, and called on the agriculture minister and media to go to Lara beach on Sunday to watch him dig up the nests.

“Residents are ready for war,” Tsivikos said.

The fisheries department warned Akamas residents that Cyprus sea turtles and their eggs have been protected by law since 1971.

Conservationists estimate the number of turtle nests in Lara at around 2,000 in 2021. Lara is a habitat of enormous ecological importance for both loggerhead and green sea turtles.

Akamas residents have been protesting over the government’s Akamas development plan which they claim prevents them from commercially exploiting their land.

Environmentalists also oppose the plan, saying it endangers the eastern Mediterranean island’s nature reserve, home to unique fauna and endangered species.

Ineia residents say that while the other villages will receive compensation under the plan, they will not.

Agriculture Minister Costas Kadis conceded on Wednesday that the community of Ineia and landowners in the area were most affected by the plan.

“Akamas should be preserved, but on the other hand, the area’s residents should not suffer,” he added.

Protection of the turtles’ habitat, the Lara-Toxeftra Akamas area, was secured in 1989.

“Sea turtles are included in the Barcelona Convention for specially protected areas, and biological diversity of the Mediterranean ratified by Cyprus in 2001,” the fisheries department said.

“They are also protected by the EU Habitats Directive, transferred into national legislation in 2003,” it said, adding that actions to destroy or try to destroy turtle nests or eggs are prohibited.

Warmer and wetter weather linked to climate change appears to stress out bumblebees and make their wings more asymmetrical, which could ultimately affect their future development, according to UK scientists in a new research paper.

“With hotter and wetter conditions predicted to place bumblebees under higher stress, the fact these conditions will become more frequent under climate change means bumblebees may be in for a rough time over the 21st century,” scientists at Imperial College, London, wrote in the Animal Ecology journal on Wednesday.

The large furry bees, known for their distinctive buzz, only feed on flowers, making them vulnerable to changes to the countryside due to intensive farming. 

Their population has declined in Britain over the past century, with two species becoming extinct, according to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

The Imperial College scientists looked at more than 6,000 bumblebee specimens in natural history museums, collected across Britain during the 20th century.

The scientists examined the right-left symmetry between the bees’ four wings, because asymmetry is an indication that the insect experienced stress during development.

They found that bees from the second half of the 20th century consistently had a higher average rate of asymmetry. 

Asymmetry was also “consistently higher in warmer and wetter years,” according to the paper’s senior co-author Richard Gill.

“Overall, these results could suggest bumblebees experienced increasing stress as the century progressed and that aspects of climate change could have contributed to this trend,” the paper said.

The weather conditions linked to wonky wings “will likely increase in frequency with climate change”, it continued.

In April, scientists in the United States who studied more than 20,000 bees in the Rocky Mountains found that bumblebees had lower heat tolerance than smaller bees and were “more threatened under climate warming than other bees”.

Insects are facing a huge impact from both warming climate and intensive agriculture.

Another study released in April in the journal Nature found that these factors cause insect populations to plummet by nearly half compared to areas less affected by temperature rises and industrial farming.

Massive wildfires in Portugal and Spain were largely under control Thursday after forcing thousands from their homes and destroying large swathes of land. 

The fires in both countries followed punishing heatwaves and long dry spells, leaving forests parched and primed to burn.

In Portugal, over 1,000 firefighters were still deployed in the Serra da Estrela national park, but the blaze was mostly contained after days of burning out of control.

With more hot weather forecast, however, there were fears it could flare up again. 

“The fire is under control, but it is not extinguished. Consolidation work will continue in the coming days,” civil protection commander Miguel Oliveira told TSF radio. 

“It is always possible, and very likely, that there will be new reactivations, but we hope that they do not take on worrying proportions,” he said.

The huge fire in central Portugal was brought under control last week, only to restart again Monday. 

More than 25,000 hectares (nearly 61,800 acres) of land is estimated to have been scorched by the fire in the UNESCO-listed park, home to diverse wildlife species including wildcats and lizards. 

Forecasts are predicting a fresh heatwave on Saturday, the latest in a string of hot spells in Portugal this year. July was the hottest on record in nearly a century. 

Interior Minister Jose Luis Carneiro said Wednesday “we will experience increased risks” of fires in the coming days due to hot and dry conditions. 

– ‘Some good news’ –

In neighbouring Spain, rain and lower temperatures eased pressure on firefighters who for days have been battling two major fires in the eastern Valencia region, officials said Thursday. 

“Finally, some good news: the rain and the drop in temperatures have helped to contain the fire in Vall d’Ebo,” regional leader Ximo Puig tweeted late Wednesday. 

He hoped the conditions would also “help stabilise the fire in Bejis” further north. 

By Thursday morning, there were “few visible flames left”, Puig told Cadena Ser radio, as the emergency services said the rain had almost completely put out the fires.

The two wildfires had forced the evacuation of 3,000 people and burnt their way through some 25,000 hectares. 

So far this year, Spain has been hit by 391 wildfires, which have destroyed over 283,000 hectares of land in total, the latest figures from the European Forest Fire Information System show.

This year’s fires in Spain have been particularly devastating, destroying more than three times the area consumed by wildfires in the whole of 2021, which totalled over 84,000 hectares, the figures show.

In Portugal, some 92,000 hectares have burned this year, according to the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests, in the worst fires since 2017 when around 100 people were killed. 

Experts say climate change driven by human activity is boosting the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, droughts and wildfires. 

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Sixteen people were killed and many left missing in flash flooding in northwest China, state media reported Thursday, as the country battles extreme weather that has shuttered factories and caused rolling power cuts.

The deluge comes during a summer of soaring temperatures and torrential rains in China, with multiple cities clocking their hottest days on record and floods causing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage.

Floods hit this week in a mountainous region of Datong county in Qinghai province, affecting more than 6,200 people from six villages, state broadcaster CCTV said.

Photos of the aftermath showed roads covered in mud, uprooted trees, damaged homes and rescue workers carrying shovels.

“As of noon on the 18th, 16 people have been killed,” added CCTV, saying that rescue work was ongoing.

At least 18 people are missing and 20 have since been rescued, and a “frontline headquarters” has been set up to organise the emergency response, according to state media reports.

“The rescue work is progressing in an orderly manner,” the report said, adding that sudden heavy rainfall Wednesday night had triggered the situation.

– Extreme weather –

Scientists say extreme weather across the world has become more frequent due to climate change, and will likely grow more intense as temperatures rise.

Severe flooding in southern China in June displaced more than half a million people and caused an estimated $250 million in damage.

On Wednesday, Chinese authorities warned that heavy rains were also expected to hit northern regions of the country including the capital Beijing and its neighbouring Tianjin and Hebei.

Earlier this week, President Xi Jinping called on officials in the northeastern Liaoning province to “ensure the safety of people’s lives in flood control”, state media reported.

Meanwhile, millions of people in southwest China are facing rolling power cuts after a crushing heatwave led to an electricity supply crunch that has forced factories to halt work.

Sichuan province relies heavily on dams to generate its electricity but the heat has caused reservoirs to dry up, exacerbating the energy shortage.

On Thursday, Sichuan authorities ordered employers to stop requiring staff to perform outdoor work when temperatures are forecast to hit 40 degrees Celsius or above.

Water volume in the province’s major rivers has fallen by around 20 to 50 percent in the absence of rain as well, impacting hydropower generation, state news agency Xinhua reported Wednesday citing provincial energy officials.

The China Meteorological Administration said the country was going through its longest period of sustained high temperatures since records began in 1961, with 64 straight days of heat warnings in various regions starting in June.

More than a third of weather stations in China recorded extreme heat this summer, with 262 of them reaching or surpassing previous records, the administration said.