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A map of Taiwan locating the epicentre of a 6.9-magnitude quake on September 18

A strong earthquake struck southeastern Taiwan, bringing at least one building down in a small town and tearing up roads as forecasters said the threat of a regional tsunami had passed.

The quake hit at 2:44 pm (0644 GMT) about 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of the city of Taitung at a depth of 10 kilometres, the United States Geological Survey said.

Its initial strength was given as magnitude 7.2 but USGS later downgraded it to a 6.9-magnitude quake. Taiwan’s weather bureau recorded it as 6.8-magnitude. 

Japan’s Meteorological Agency and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued tsunami advisories shortly after the quake, but both later sent updated bulletins saying there was no longer a threat of high waves.

In the Taiwanese town of Yuli, a building that hosted a 7/11 convenience store on the ground floor collapsed.

Video footage posted by Taiwan’s Central News Agency showed panicked residents running towards the building, which had caved in and sent up a thick cloud of dust.

Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said a train derailed in Dongli station in Hualien after it was hit by concrete from an overhead canopy that came loose during the quake.

Photographs released by CNA showed the train’s six carriages leaning at an angle in the station. 

TRA said the 20 onboard passengers were evacuated and no injuries were reported. 

Shaking was also felt in the capital Taipei and the southwestern city of Kaohsiung, with residents posting videos of chandeliers and paintings swaying on social media.

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen urged people to be vigilant for further aftershocks in the coming hours. 

“Water and electricity supplies in some areas are also affected by the earthquake,” she wrote on Facebook. “The related disaster relief work is in full swing.”

– Broken bridge, swimming pool waves –

Many expressed the kind of resilience that comes with living on an island that frequently experiences earthquakes.

In one video posted online, a man said he was trapped on a bridge where the road at either end had collapsed into a twisted mess of tarmac and concrete.

“This is troublesome,” he could be heard saying. “The whole bridge is broken”. 

In another Facebook post, Ou Chin Te shared footage from the swimming pool on the 60th floor of The One — a skyscraper in Kaohsiung and Taiwan’s fourth-highest building. 

The tremors had turned the pool into a wobbly mass of waves. 

“It’s shaking super big, I’m on 60th floor, it’s so scary,” a laughing man could be heard saying in the video.

A 6.6-magnitude quake hit the same region on Saturday and there have been multiple tremors since, with minimal damage in what is a mountainous and sparsely populated rural region. 

But Sunday’s quake was much stronger.

The China Earthquake Network Centre said tremors were felt in coastal areas including Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Shanghai.

Taiwan is regularly hit by earthquakes as the island lies near the junction of two tectonic plates.

The mountainous island sits on the “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Most of Taiwan’s population lives on the flat western coast and in the capital Taipei.

The scenic eastern coast is more remote and less populated but a major tourist draw.

There are few international tourists in Taiwan these days because the island maintains mandatory Covid quarantine for most arrivals.  

Taiwan is regularly hit by quakes and most cause minimal damage but the island also has a long history of deadly tremors. 

Hualien, a tourist hotspot, was struck by a 6.4-magnitude earthquake in 2018 that killed 17 people and injured nearly 300. 

In September 1999, a 7.6-magnitude quake killed around 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island’s history.

A map of Taiwan locating the epicentre of a 6.9-magnitude quake on September 18

A strong earthquake struck southeastern Taiwan on Sunday, bringing down at least one building in a small town.

The quake hit at 2:44 pm (0644 GMT) about 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of the city of Taitung at a depth of 10 kilometres, the United States Geological Survey said.

Its initial strength was given as magnitude 7.2 but USGS later downgraded it to a 6.9-magnitude quake. Taiwan’s weather bureau recorded it as 6.8-magnitude. 

Japan’s Meteorological Agency and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued tsunami advisories shortly after the quake, but both later sent updated bulletins saying there was no longer a threat of high waves.

Live TV footage from the affected Japanese islands did not immediately show signs of high waves.

In Taiwan, at least one building that hosted a convenience store on the ground floor collapsed in the town of Yuli, according to the island’s semi-official Central News Agency.

Video footage posted by CNA showed panicked residents running towards the building, which had caved in and sent up a thick cloud of dust.

Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said a train derailed in Dongli station in Hualien after it was hit by concrete from an overhead canopy that came loose during the quake.

Photographs shared on social media showed the train’s six carriages leaning at an angle in the station. 

TRA said the 20 onboard passengers were evacuated and no injuries were reported. 

Shaking was also felt in the capital Taipei, with residents posting videos of chandeliers and paintings swaying on social media. 

A 6.6-magnitude quake hit the same region on Saturday and there have been multiple tremors since with minimal damage in what is a mountainous, sparsely populated rural region. 

But Sunday’s quake was much stronger.

The China Earthquake Network Centre said tremors were felt in coastal areas including Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Shanghai.

Taiwan is regularly hit by earthquakes as the island lies near the junction of two tectonic plates.

The mountainous island sits on the “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Most of Taiwan’s population lives on the flat western coast and in the capital Taipei.

The scenic eastern coast is more remote and less populated but a major tourist draw. 

It is regularly hit by quakes and most cause minimal damage but the island also has a long history of deadly tremors. 

Hualien, a tourist hotspot, was struck by a 6.4-magnitude earthquake in 2018 that killed 17 people and injured nearly 300. 

In September 1999, a 7.6-magnitude quake killed around 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island’s history.

Typhoon Nanmadol has brought heavy rains, high waves and strong winds to southern Japan

Thousands of people took refuge in shelters in southwestern Japan on Sunday as powerful Typhoon Nanmadol churned towards the region, prompting authorities to urge over four million residents to evacuate.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has issued a rare “special warning” for Kagoshima and Miyazaki in the Kyushu region — an alert that is issued only when it forecasts conditions seen once in several decades.

By Sunday morning, heavy rain and high winds lashed the area on Japan’s southern island, with nearly 98,000 households in Kagoshima, Kumamoto, Nagasaki and Miyazaki already without power.

Trains, flights and ferry runs were cancelled until the passage of the storm, and even some convenience stores — generally open all hours and considered a lifeline in disasters — were shutting their doors.

“Please stay away from dangerous places, and please evacuate if you feel even the slightest hint of danger,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida tweeted after convening a government meeting on the storm.

“It will be dangerous to evacuate at night. Please move to safety while it’s still light outside,” he added.

The JMA has warned the region could face “unprecedented” danger from high winds, storm surges and torrential rain.

“Maximum caution is required,” Ryuta Kurora, head of the JMA’s forecast unit said on Saturday.

“It’s a very dangerous typhoon.”  

“The wind will be so fierce that some houses might collapse,” Kurora told reporters, also warning of flooding and landslides.

National broadcaster NHK, which collates local warnings, said more than four million people across Kyushu were issued evacuation warnings, with officials in Kagoshima and Miyazaki saying over 15,000 people were in local shelters by Sunday afternoon.

The evacuation warnings call on people to move to shelters or alternative accommodation that can withstand extreme weather.

But they are not mandatory, and during past extreme weather events authorities have struggled to convince residents to take shelter quickly enough.

Kurora urged people to move before the worst of the storm arrived and warned that even in sturdy buildings residents would need to take precautions.

“Please move into sturdy buildings before violent winds start to blow and stay away from windows even inside sturdy buildings,” he told a late-night press conference.

– ‘Highest caution possible’ –

By Sunday morning, bullet train operations in the area were halted, and NHK said hundreds of flights had been cancelled.

“The southern part of the Kyushu region may see the sort of violent wind, high waves and high tides that have never been experienced before,” the JMA said Sunday, urging residents to exercise “the highest caution possible”.

On the ground, an official in Kagoshima’s Izumi city said conditions were deteriorating rapidly.

“The wind has become extremely strong. Rain is falling hard too,” he told AFP. “It’s a total white-out outside. Visibility is almost zero.”

On the coast in Kyushu’s Minamata city, fishing boats tied up for safety bobbed on the waves, as spray from the sea and bands of rain sluiced the boardwalk.

As of 1 pm (0400 GMT), the typhoon was located above tiny Yakushima island, packing gusts up to 234 kilometres (146 miles) per hour.

It is expected to make landfall in Kyushu on Sunday evening, before turning northeast and sweeping up across Japan’s main island through early Wednesday.

Japan is currently in typhoon season and faces around 20 such storms a year, routinely seeing heavy rains that cause landslides or flash floods.

In 2019, Typhoon Hagibis smashed into Japan as it hosted the Rugby World Cup, claiming the lives of more than 100 people. 

A year earlier, Typhoon Jebi shut down Kansai Airport in Osaka, killing 14 people.

And in 2018, floods and landslides killed more than 200 people in western Japan during the country’s annual rainy season.

Scientists say climate change is increasing the severity of storms and causing extreme weather such as heat waves, droughts and flash floods to become more frequent and intense.

High in the hills of northwestern Tunisia, farmers are growing thousands of fig trees with a unique system of terracing they hope will protect them from ever-harsher droughts

High in the hills of northwestern Tunisia, farmers are tending thousands of fig trees with a unique system of terracing they hope will protect them from ever-harsher droughts.

But the “hanging gardens” of Djebba El Olia have been put to the test this year as the North African country sweltered through its hottest July since the 1950s.

That has exacerbated a long drought that has left Tunisia’s reservoirs at just a third of their capacity.

The gardens are supplied with water from two springs high in the mountains.

The water is fed into the orchards by a network of canals that are opened and shut at set times, according to the size of the orchard.

Crucially, a wide variety of crops provides resilience and in-built pest control, unlike the monocultures that dominate modern agriculture and require huge inputs of pesticides to survive.

“We grow figs but also other trees like quinces, olives and pomegranates, and beneath them we plant a wide range of greens and legumes,” said activist Farida Djebbi as insects buzzed between thyme, mint and rosemary flowers.

Djebbi pointed out some of the channels, which irrigate the area’s 300 hectares (740 acres) of steeply sloping orchards.

In 2020, the Food and Agriculture Organization recognised the system as an example of “innovative and resilient agroforestry”, adding it to an elite list of just 67 “Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems”.

The system “has been able to adapt and take advantage of an inhospitable topography”, the UN agency said.

“Through the use of natural geological formations and the use of stones, local communities have been able to transform the landscape into fertile and productive lands.”

The FAO praised the diversity of local crop varieties grown by the area’s farmers, as well as their use of wild plants to repel potential pests and of livestock to “plough” and fertilise the soil.

– Growing up with figs –

While nobody knows exactly how old the system is, human habitation in the area predates the Carthaginian civilisation founded in the ninth century BC.

But while it may have endured for generations, the system is under threat as climate change kicks in.

Activist Tawfiq El Rajehi, 60, says the flow of water from springs irrigating the area has dropped off noticeably, particularly in the past two years.

Unlike in previous years, the surrounding peaks no longer get covered in snow each winter, and the leaves of many of the trees in the lower part of Djebba are yellowing and sick.

Rajehi, a teacher at the local school, said climate change and low rainfall were compounded by another factor: farmers favouring cash crops.

“Some farmers have moved to growing more figs instead of less water-intensive crops because figs have become more profitable in recent years,” he said.

“We need to keep a good balance and variety of plants.”

Nevertheless, residents say they are proud of their heritage.

Farmer Lotfi El Zarmani, 52, said there was also growing demand for Djebba figs, which were given a protected designation of origin by the agriculture ministry in 2012 — still the only Tunisian fruit to enjoy the certification.

“They’re getting a reputation, plus exporting them has become easier, plus they bring higher prices,” Zarmani said, adding that most exports go to the Gulf or neighbouring Libya.

Rajehi’s daughter, university student Chaima, put on protective gloves as she set out to harvest the fruit from her family’s small lot.

“Figs are more than a fruit for us. We’re born here among the fig trees and we grow up with them, we learn from a young age how to look after them,” the 20-year-old said.

Djebbi is working to persuade farmers to preserve traditional ways of processing the products harvested in the area.

She is working with 10 other women on a cooperative that distils essence from wildflowers, dries figs, and produces fig and mulberry jam.

“Products we learnt how to make from our mothers and grandmothers are becoming popular because they’re of such high quality,” she said.

Coal loaded on trains at a coal plant in Huaibei, in China's eastern Anhui province, on June 23, 2022 — coal power still makes up most of China's energy supply

China has stepped up spending on coal in the face of extreme weather, a domestic energy crunch and rising global fuel prices — raising concerns Beijing’s policies may hinder the fight against climate change.

The country is the world’s biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases driving global warming, and President Xi Jinping has vowed to reduce coal use from 2026 as part of a broad set of climate promises.

Beijing has committed to peaking its carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. 

Overall carbon emissions in China have fallen for four consecutive quarters on the back of an economic slowdown, research reported by climate monitor Carbon Brief showed in early September.

But at the same time, slowing growth has led authorities to rely on smokestack industries in an effort to boost the economy.

The push to shore up coal power — which still makes up most of China’s energy supply — has alarmed analysts who warn that it will make an eventual transition to a renewables-dominated energy mix more difficult.

Spooked by an energy shortage last autumn, Chinese authorities in spring ordered coal producers to add 300 million tonnes of mining capacity this year — the equivalent of an extra month of coal production for the country.

In just the first quarter of 2022, regulators endorsed the equivalent of half the entire coal-fired power plant capacity approved in 2021, according to Greenpeace.

– Inefficiencies –

Authorities have also burned and mined more coal in recent weeks in order to meet increased air conditioning demand and make up for shrunken hydropower dams during China’s hottest-ever summer.

Premier Li Keqiang in June called for “releasing advanced coal capacity, as much as possible, and implementing long-term coal supply”.

The independent Climate Action Tracker warns that even the “most binding” climate targets laid out by Beijing would be in line with global warming of between three and four degrees Celsius before the end of the century — well above the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit global warming to 1.5C.

To meet that goal, it said, China would “need to reduce emissions as early as possible and well before 2030” — as well as “decrease coal and other fossil fuel consumption at a much faster rate than currently planned”.

Beijing’s unwillingness to let go of coal stems partly from inefficiencies in its power grid that prevent surplus energy from being transported across regions.

Coal and gas give local officials a ready source of energy and are, in practice, “the only way for local officials to avoid power shortages”, energy researcher Lauri Myllyvirta wrote in a Carbon Brief report.

– ‘Politically crucial year’ –

China has made real progress in building up renewable energy capacity.

The current operating solar capacity in the country accounts for nearly half the global total, according to San Francisco-based non-governmental organisation Global Energy Monitor (GEM).

But unlike wind or sunlight, stockpiles of coal and gas can be held for long periods of time and deployed as needed, giving local authorities a sense of security.

Yet, building more coal facilities means less focus on fixing problems with the grid, Myllyvirta said in comments to AFP, warning plant owners would be motivated to “slow down the transition as they will have an interest in making use of their brand-new assets”.

At the same time, the central government wants to “avoid large-scale blackouts, which we witnessed last winter in the northeastern provinces, in this politically crucial year for Xi”, Byford Tsang, senior policy adviser at climate think-tank E3G, told AFP.

President Xi is expected to secure an unprecedented third term in power at a major Communist Party meeting next month.

Tsang said skyrocketing international energy prices driven by the Russian invasion of Ukraine also pushed Beijing to shore up domestic coal production, pointing to a 17.5 percent drop in coal imports in the first half of this year compared to a year earlier.

Expanding coal capacity as a quick fix, however, goes against “immediate annual cuts in coal use that the UN and leading research organisations have called for”, GEM analysts said.

GEM said all of China’s proposed new mines could together emit as much as six million tonnes of the greenhouse gas methane each year once operational. That is roughly equivalent to the annual methane emissions of Austria, according to World Bank data.

“The more coal China builds now, the harder it becomes to finance and deliver renewable energy projects later,” Wu Jinghan, climate and energy project leader for Greenpeace East Asia, told AFP.

“The longer we wait to transition, the steeper the transition pathway becomes,” Wu said. “That means more disruptive and higher risk, financially and environmentally.”

Farmer Musimin is on a one-man mission to save the exotic blooms unique to the land on the outskirts of Yogyakarta

Orchids in hand and a bamboo ladder on his shoulder, farmer Musimin scans the forest at the foot of Indonesia’s most active volcano to point out clusters of the indigenous flowers he has been salvaging for years.

The 56-year-old, who goes by one name like many Indonesians, is a self-taught conservationist with no formal background in botanics. 

He has dedicated his career to cultivating plants he compares to gemstones, and has been on a one-man mission to save the exotic blooms unique to the land on the outskirts of Yogyakarta on Java island.

His work began after lava and ash ripped through the area from the powerful eruptions of Mount Merapi, the last major one in 2010.

“I remember orchids used to be abundant in the forest,” he said.

“Locals from surrounding villages could take any orchids they wanted, and they sold the flowers at nearby tourist destinations.”

But many were destroyed by the ash clouds that fell on the land below the volcano. 

So he set about saving their wilting fortunes, over the years building two bamboo greenhouses where he could preserve the most special kinds of orchids.

The volcano killed about 60 people when it erupted in 1994, destroying thousands of hectares of forest. 

Another eruption in 2010 left more than 300 dead, while also wreaking havoc on the land.

“The forest near my house was burnt dry and the orchids I used to easily find were gone. I regretted not keeping one or two of them,” said Musimin of the 1994 tragedy.

That encouraged him to join the local government’s effort to find the surviving orchids as he and his neighbours explored what remained.

They managed to revive at least 90 varieties of orchids that would also end up surviving the 2010 eruption, he said.

– ‘Pioneer of orchid conservation’ – 

Now Musimin mostly works alone and wants those who enter the forest to leave the orchids to blossom instead of trying to profit from them.

“A lot of people now choose to pick and sell orchids from the forest. I personally think the orchids are better off in their habitat, where they can live as the crowns of the forest,” he said.

Other orchid centres run by locals who learned about conservation from Musimin have sprung up in the forest around the volcano, said Mount Merapi National Park spokesperson Akhmadi.

“He is, indeed, the pioneer of orchid conservation in Mount Merapi. His work has become an example for other groups we are working with, that have emulated and further developed his programmes,” he said. 

With others now taking Musimin’s lead, the father of two wants to continue his orchid-saving legacy by passing down his self-taught botanical knowledge to his grandchild, whom he often takes into the forest. 

“I am showing him orchids as early as possible,” he said.

“Who knows, he could be my successor.”

Japan's weather agency has warned Typhoon Nanmadol will be a dangerous storm

Thousands of people were in shelters in southwestern Japan on Sunday as powerful Typhoon Nanmadol churned towards the region, prompting authorities to urge nearly three million residents to evacuate.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has issued a rare “special warning” for the Kagoshima region in southern Kyushu prefecture — an alert that is issued only when it forecasts conditions seen once in several decades.

By Sunday morning, 25,680 households in Kagoshima and neighbouring Miyazaki were already without power, while regional train services, flights and ferry runs were cancelled until the passage of the storm, local utilities and transport services said.

The JMA has warned the region could face “unprecedented” danger from high winds, storm surges and torrential rain.

“Maximum caution is required,” Ryuta Kurora, head of the JMA’s forecast unit said on Saturday.

“It’s a very dangerous typhoon.”  

“The wind will be so fierce that some houses might collapse,” Kurora told reporters, also warning of flooding and landslides.

So far, 2.9 million residents in Kyushu have been issued with evacuation warnings, according to the government’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency, and Kagoshima officials said over 8,500 people were already in local shelters by Sunday morning.

The evacuation warnings call on people to move to shelter or alternative accommodation that can withstand extreme weather.

But they are not mandatory, and during past extreme weather events authorities have struggled to convince residents to take shelter quickly enough.

Kurora urged people to evacuate before the worst of the storm arrived and warned that even in sturdy buildings residents would need to take precautions.

– ‘Highest caution possible’ –

“Please move into sturdy buildings before violent winds start to blow and stay away from windows even inside sturdy buildings,” he told a late night press conference.

By Sunday morning, bullet train operations in the area were halted, along with regional train lines, and NHK said at least 510 flights had been cancelled.

“The southern part of the Kyushu region may see the sort of violent wind, high waves and high tides that have never been experienced before,” the JMA said Sunday, urging residents to exercise “the highest caution possible.”

On the ground, a Kagoshima prefectural official told AFP there were no reports so far of injuries or structural damage but conditions were deteriorating.

“The rain and wind are getting stronger. The rain is so heavy that you cannot really see what’s out there. It looks all white,” he said.

At 9:00 am (0000 GMT), the typhoon was 80 kilometres (50 miles) southeast of Japan’s Yakushima island, and packing gusts up to 252 kilometres per hour.

It is expected to make landfall in Kyushu on Sunday evening, before turning northeast and sweeping up across Japan’s main island through early Wednesday.

Japan is currently in typhoon season and faces around 20 such storms a year, routinely seeing heavy rains that cause landslides or flash floods.

In 2019, Typhoon Hagibis smashed into Japan as it hosted the Rugby World Cup, claiming the lives of more than 100 people. 

A year earlier, Typhoon Jebi shut down Kansai Airport in Osaka, killing 14 people.

And in 2018, floods and landslides killed more than 200 people in western Japan during the country’s annual rainy season.

Scientists say climate change is increasing the severity of storms and causing extreme weather such as heat waves, droughts and flash floods to become more frequent and intense. 

This photograph taken on September 17, 2022 and released by the Indian Press Information Bureau (PIB) shows a wild cheetah being released at Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh state

Eight Namibian cheetahs arrived in India Saturday, decades after their local extinction, in an ambitious project to reintroduce the spotted big cats that has divided experts on its prospects.

Officials say the project is the world’s first intercontinental relocation of cheetahs, the planet’s fastest land animal.

The five females and three males were moved from a game park in Namibia aboard a chartered Boeing 747 dubbed “Cat plane” for an 11-hour flight.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi presided over the release at Kuno National Park, a wildlife sanctuary 320 kilometres (200 miles) south of New Delhi selected for its abundant prey and grasslands.

“Today the cheetah has returned to the soil of India,” Modi said in a video address after their arrival, which coincided with the leader’s 72nd birthday.

“The nature loving consciousness of India has also awakened with full force,” he added. “We must not allow our efforts to fail.”

Each of the animals, aged between two and five and a half, have been fitted with a satellite collar to monitor their movements. 

They will initially be kept in a quarantine enclosure for about a month before being released in the open forest areas of the park.

Critics have warned the creatures may struggle to adapt to the Indian habitat.

A significant number of leopards are present in the park, and conservation scientist Ravi Chellam said that cubs could fall prey to feral dogs and other carnivores.

Under the government’s current action plan, “the prospects for a viable, wild and free-ranging population of cheetahs getting established in India is bleak,” he told AFP.

“The habitats should have been prepared first before bringing the cats from Namibia,” he added. “It is like us moving to a new city with only a sub-optimal place to stay — Not a nice situation at all.”

But organisers are unfazed.

“Cheetahs are very adaptable and (I’m) assuming that they will adapt well into this environment,” said Dr Laurie Marker, founder of the Namibia-based charity Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), which has been central to the project logistics.

“I don’t have a lot of worries,” she told AFP.

– Habitat loss and hunting –

India was once home to the Asiatic cheetah but it was declared extinct there by 1952. 

The critically endangered subspecies, which once roamed across the Middle East, Central Asia and India, are now only found, in very small numbers, in Iran.

Efforts to reintroduce the animals to India gathered pace in 2020 when the Supreme Court ruled that African cheetahs, a different subspecies, could be settled in India at a “carefully chosen location” on an experimental basis.

They are a donation from the government of Namibia, one of a tiny handful of countries in Africa where the magnificent creature survives in the wild.

Negotiations are ongoing for similar translocation from South Africa, with vets suggesting 12 cats could be moved. 

Cheetahs became extinct in India primarily because of habitat loss and hunting for their distinctive spotted coats. 

An Indian prince, the Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo, is widely believed to have killed the last three recorded cheetahs in India in the late 1940s.

One of the oldest of the big cat species, with ancestors dating back about 8.5 million years, cheetahs once roamed widely throughout Asia and Africa in great numbers, said CCF.

But today only around 7,000 remain, primarily in the African savannas.

The cheetah is listed globally as “vulnerable” on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

In North Africa and Asia it is “critically endangered”.

Their survival is threatened primarily by dwindling natural habitat and loss of prey due to human hunting, the development of land for other purposes and climate change.

Japan's weather agency has warned of a 'very dangerous' typhoon heading towards the country's southern Kyushu island

Two million people in Japan were told Saturday to seek shelter before the arrival of Typhoon Nanmadol, national broadcaster NHK said, as the weather agency issued a rare “special warning” about the powerful storm.

NHK, which compiles alerts issued by local authorities, said level four evacuation instructions — the second highest — were in place for people in Kagoshima, Kumamoto and Miyazaki in the southern Kyushu region.

The move came as the Japan Meteorological Agency issued its highest alert for the Kagoshima region, a warning that comes when it forecasts conditions only seen once in several decades.

It is the first typhoon-linked special warning issued outside of the Okinawa region since the current system began in 2013.

On Saturday evening, Typhoon Nanmadol was classed at the agency’s top category of “violent”, and was packing gusts of up to 270 kilometres (167 miles) as it hovered about 200 kilometres north-northeast of Minami Daito island, part of a string of remote isles that form the Okinawa region.

The storm is expected to approach or make landfall on Sunday in Kagoshima prefecture, then move north the following day before heading towards Japan’s main island.

“There are risks of unprecedented storms, high waves, storm surges, and record rainfall,” Ryuta Kurora, the head of the Japan Meteorological Agency’s forecast unit, told reporters. 

“Maximum caution is required,” he said, urging residents to evacuate early.

“It’s a very dangerous typhoon.”  

“The wind will be so fierce that some houses might collapse,” Kurora told reporters, also warning of flooding and landslides.

The evacuation warnings call on people to move to shelter or alternative accommodation that can withstand extreme weather.

But they are not mandatory, and during past extreme weather events authorities have struggled to convince residents to take shelter quickly enough.

Kurora said even inside strong buildings, residents should take precautions.

“Please move into sturdy buildings before violent winds start to blow and stay away from windows even inside sturdy buildings,” he told a late night press conference.

Japan is currently in typhoon season and faces around 20 such storms a year, routinely seeing heavy rains that cause landslides or flash floods.

In 2019, Typhoon Hagibis smashed into Japan as it hosted the Rugby World Cup, claiming the lives of more than 100 people. 

A year earlier, Typhoon Jebi shut down Kansai Airport in Osaka, killing 14 people.

And in 2018, floods and landslides killed more than 200 people in western Japan during the country’s annual rainy season.

Ahead of Typhoon Nanmadol’s arrival, flight cancellations began to affect regional airports including those in Kagoshima, Miyazaki and Kumamoto, according to the websites of Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways. 

Scientists say climate change is increasing the severity of storms and causing extreme weather such as heat waves, droughts and flash floods to become more frequent and intense. 

Environmental activists have denounced the practice of transporting highly radioactive materials

Two ships carrying reprocessed nuclear fuel destined for Japan set sail Saturday morning from northern France, an AFP photographer said, despite criticism from environmental campaigners.

The fuel was due to leave the northern French port city of Cherbourg earlier this month but was delayed by the breakdown of loading equipment.

Environmental activists have denounced the practice of transporting such highly radioactive materials, calling it irresponsible.

The previous transport of MOX fuel to Japan in September 2021 drew protests from environmental group Greenpeace. 

MOX fuel is a mixture of reprocessed plutonium and uranium.

“The Pacific Heron and Pacific Egret, the specialised ships belonging to British company PNTL, left Cherbourg harbour on September 17. They will ensure the shipment of MOX nuclear fuel to Japan,” French nuclear technology group Orano said in a statement Saturday.

They are bound for Japan for use in a power plant and Orano said it expected the shipment to arrive in November.

Japan lacks facilities to process waste from its own nuclear reactors and sends most of it overseas, particularly to France.

The operation was carried out “successfully”, Orano said, and it is the second shipment that arrived in Cherbourg from a plant in La Hague, located 20 kilometres (12 miles) away, after the first came on September 7.

Yannick Rousselet of Greenpeace France previously denounced the shipment.

“Transporting such dangerous materials from a nuclear proliferation point of view is completely irresponsible,” he said last month.

MOX is composed of 92 percent uranium oxide and eight percent plutonium oxide, according to Orano. 

The plutonium “is not the same as that used by the military,” it said.