AFP UK

Just before leaving Zaporizhzhia to visit the plant, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said his team would not stop, despite shelling in the area

UN inspectors arrived at a Russian-held nuclear plant in southern Ukraine Thursday despite an early shelling attack, as the ICRC warned the consequences of a strike on the facility could be “catastrophic”.

After crossing the frontline into Russian-held territory, the 14-strong team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reached the facility around 3:00 pm, the agency said on Twitter. 

“IAEA’s support and assistance mission to #Zaporizhzhya (ISAMZ) led by Director General Rafael Grossi has just arrived at Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant to conduct indispensable nuclear safety and security and safeguards activities,” it said.

Wearing bright blue flak jackets and helmets, they had vowed to press ahead to reach Europe’s biggest nuclear facility despite early-morning shelling in the area that forced the closure of one of its six reactors.

Energoatom, Ukraine’s nuclear agency, said it was “the second time in 10 days” that Russian shelling had forced the closure of a reactor. 

It said the plant’s emergency protection system kicked in shortly before 5:00 am (0200 GMT), shutting reactor five, “due to another (Russian) mortar shelling” and that a backup power supply “was damaged” in the attack. 

The area around the plant, which lies on the southern banks of the Dnipro River, has suffered repeated shelling, with both sides blaming the other, sparking global concern over the risk of an accident.

– ‘Stop playing with fire’ –

“It is high time to stop playing with fire and instead take concrete measures to protect this facility… from any military operations,” ICRC chief Robert Mardini told reporters in Kyiv. 

“The slightest miscalculation could trigger devastation that we will regret for decades.”

After Russian forces seized the plant on March 4, Energoatom shut two reactors, followed by a third after shelling on August 5. With a fourth in repairs, Thursday’s incident leaves only one of the six reactors working. 

Mardini said it was “encouraging” the IAEA team was going to inspect the plant because the stakes were “immense”.

“When hazardous sites become battlegrounds, the consequences for millions of people and the environment can be catastrophic and last many years,” he said.

On leaving Zaporizhzhia, the IAEA chief said his team  would be travelling through areas where “the risks are significant” but had decided to go ahead anyway. 

“We have to proceed with this. We have a very important mission to accomplish.”

– Shelling, saboteurs and back-to-school –

The town of Energodar which is located next to the plant came under sustained attack at dawn, with Russian troops firing “mortars and using automatic weapons and rockets”, its mayor Dmytro Orlov said on Telegram. 

But Moscow accused Kyiv of smuggling in up to 60 military “saboteurs”, saying they reached the area near the plant at dawn and that Russian troops had taken “measures to annihilate the enemy”. 

Grossi has said the IAEA will seek to establish a “permanent presence” at the facility “to prevent a nuclear accident and preserve the largest nuclear power plant in Europe”.

Ukraine has accused Russia of deploying hundreds of soldiers and storing ammunition at the plant. 

Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops pressed ahead with a counter-offensive in the nearby region of Kherson to retake areas seized by Russia at the start of the invasion.

In its morning update, the presidency said “heavy explosions continued for the last 24 hours” across Kherson, while five people were killed and 12 others wounded in the eastern Donetsk region. 

Despite the conflict, now in its seventh month, September 1 marked the start of a new school year for children across Ukraine. 

Figures from Ukraine’s education ministry show 2,199 educational institutions have been damaged in the fighting, with 225 completely destroyed.

Just over half of the 23,000 institutions surveyed by the ministry are equipped with bomb shelters, meaning they can physically reopen, while those without will only offer online learning. 

But in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, all learning will be online due to constant Russian shelling, the mayor said last month, with a British charity charging Thursday that dozens of its schools had been “targeted”. 

An investigation by the Centre for Information Resilience found 41 institutions had been “partially or completely destroyed” with researchers finding the shelling “was targeted, rather than a by-product of indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure”.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin denounced as “ridiculous” the decision by EU foreign ministers to suspend a 2007 visa facilitation deal with Russia over the Ukraine conflict.

Ministers agreed the measure on Wednesday but stopped short of closing its borders to all Russians, as demanded by Ukraine. 

Just before leaving Zaporizhzhia to visit the plant, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said his team would not stop, despite shelling in the area

UN inspectors pressed on towards a Russian-held nuclear plant in southern Ukraine Thursday despite an early shelling attack, as the ICRC warned the consequences of a strike on the facility could be “catastrophic”.

As the 14-strong team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) left for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Ukraine said Russian troops had shelled the area, forcing the closure of one of its six reactors.

Energoatom, Ukraine’s nuclear agency, said it was “the second time in 10 days” that shelling had forced the closure of a reactor. 

The area around the plant — Europe’s largest nuclear facility — has suffered repeated shelling, with both sides accusing the other of responsibility, sparking global concern over the risk of an accident. 

“It is high time to stop playing with fire and instead take concrete measures to protect this facility… from any military operations,” ICRC chief Robert Mardini told reporters in Kyiv. 

“The slightest miscalculation could trigger devastation that we will regret for decades.”

Energoatom said the plant’s emergency protection system kicked in shortly before 5:00 am (0200 GMT) “due to another (Russian) mortar shelling” and that “operating power unit five was shut down”. 

But the backup power supply “was damaged” in the attack, it said. 

After Russian forces seized the plant on March 4, Energoatom shut two of the reactors, followed by a third after shelling on August 5. 

With a fourth in repairs, Thursday’s incident means only one of the six is functioning.

– ‘The stakes are immense’ –

Mardini said it was “encouraging” that the IAEA team was en route to inspect the plant because the stakes were “immense”.

“When hazardous sites become battlegrounds, the consequences for millions of people and the environment can be catastrophic and last many years,” he said.

On leaving Zaporizhzhia, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said his team had been updated about the shelling but would press on anyway.

“We are not stopping,” he vowed, despite being aware that in crossing the frontline into Russian-held territory, there was a security “grey area… where the risks are significant”. 

“We have to proceed with this. We have a very important mission to accomplish.”

By early afternoon, the team had crossed into the grey zone after waiting for “several hours at a checkpoint” for permission to cross, Ukraine’s Interfax news agency reported, saying “gunfire could be heard” along the road. 

– Shelling, saboteurs and back-to-school –

Earlier, Energodar Mayor Dmytro Orlov said his town had come under sustained attack at dawn on Thursday, saying Russian troops had fired “mortars and used automatic weapons and rockets”.

Energodar town is located next to the plant on the southern banks of the Dnipro River.

But Moscow accused Kyiv of smuggling in up to 60 military “saboteurs”, saying they reached the area near the plant just after dawn and that Russian troops had taken “measures to annihilate the enemy”. 

Grossi on Wednesday said the IAEA would seek to establish a “permanent presence” at the plant to avoid a nuclear disaster at the facility which is located on the frontline of the fighting.

“My mission is… to prevent a nuclear accident and preserve the largest nuclear power plant in Europe,” he said. 

Ukraine has accused Russia of deploying hundreds of soldiers and storing ammunition at the plant. 

Both Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of staging “provocations” aimed at disrupting the work of the IAEA mission. 

Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops pressed ahead with a counteroffensive in the nearby southern region of Kherson that began on Monday to retake areas seized by Russian forces at the start of the invasion.

In its morning update, the presidency said “heavy explosions continued for the last 24 hours” across Kherson region, while five people had been killed and 12 others wounded in fighting in the eastern Donetsk region. 

Despite the conflict, now in its seventh month, September 1 marked the start of a new school year for children across Ukraine. 

Figures from Ukraine’s education ministry show 2,199 educational institutions have been damaged in the fighting, with 225 of them completely destroyed.

Just over half of the 23,000 schools surveyed by the ministry are equipped with bomb shelters, meaning they can physically reopen, while those without will only offer online learning. 

But in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, all learning will be online due to constant Russian shelling, its mayor said last month, with a British charity charging Thursday that dozens of its schools had been “targeted”. 

An investigation by the Centre for Information Resilience found 41 institutions had been “partially or completely destroyed” in the northeastern city, with researchers finding the shelling “was targeted, rather than a by-product of indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure”.

Elsewhere, the foreign ministry in London said a British medic volunteering in Ukraine had died in the fighting on August 24 but gave no further details on the circumstances of his death. 

Relentless monsoon rains have submerged a third of Pakistan

Rainfall 10 times heavier than usual caused Pakistan’s devastating floods, the European Space Agency said Thursday, as it released satellite images of a vast lake created by the overflowing Indus river.

Rains, described by UN chief Antonio Guterres as a “monsoon on steroids” have claimed hundreds of lives since June, unleashing powerful floods that have washed away swathes of vital crops and damaged or destroyed more than a million homes.

Data from the EU’s Copernicus satellite has been used to map the scale of the deluge from space to help the rescue efforts, the ESA said in a statement. 

“Heavy monsoon rainfall — ten times heavier than usual — since mid-June have led to more than a third of the country now being underwater,” it said. 

The agency released images from the satellite showing an area where the Indus River has overflowed “effectively creating a long lake, tens of kilometres wide”, between the cities of Dera Murad Jamali and Larkana.  

Officials say more than 33 million people are affected — one in every seven Pakistanis — and reconstruction work will cost more than $10 billion.

Guterres has called the floods a “climate catastrophe” and launched an appeal for $160 million in emergency funding.

While it is too early to quantify the contribution of global warming in the floods, scientists say the rains are broadly consistent with expectations that climate change will make the Indian monsoon wetter. 

A recent study, based on climate models, predicted that exceptionally wet monsoons in the Indian subcontinent would become six times more likely during the 21st century, even if humanity rachets down carbon emissions.

Wildfires across France this summer sharpened focus on the consequences of climate change

Wildfires and storms. Rivers at record lows. Parched crops withering in the fields. For many Europeans, this year’s scorching summer means climate change is increasingly hard to ignore. 

After months of cloudless days and drought, the weather has been one of the major themes of media coverage — and discussions during family gatherings — over the annual August holiday period.

“This summer has seen a series of extreme weather events,” French government spokesman Olivier Veran told a first press conference after he and the government returned to the office last week.

It had been a “complete reality check, even for the most sceptical,” he said.

France experienced its second-hottest summer on record, its driest one since 1976 and the worst in terms of the loss of forestry to wildfires since 2003, he said.

In recent months, some French villages have needed to be supplied with water trucks as their usual sources have dried up. Fires have repeatedly ravaged pine forests near Bordeaux.

Even in the normally verdant Alps, cheese makers complain that their cows are producing less milk than usual because their pastures are dried up. 

The picture is similar across Europe.

In Italy, the collapse of the country’s largest Alpine glacier in July sparked an avalanche that killed 11 people.

“The year 2022 in terms of extreme climate events is code red,” said the head of environmental group Legambiente, Stefano Ciafani, in an August report.

After a punishing drought, around 400 Spanish wildfires destroyed 290,000 hectares (72,000 acres) of forest — way above the recent average of 67,000 hectares a year.

As reservoir water levels plunged, a previously flooded centuries-old church and a huge megalithic complex emerged from their depths.

And a year after shocking major floods that claimed more than 180 lives in Germany, the country saw the Rhine river — a crucial trade route — shrink to levels that were barely navigable.

– Jets and steak – 

The question for experts and campaigners is how much the sweltering summer of 2022 will translate into political change and lifestyle shifts from consumers.

As people return to work, France’s green EELV party has been setting the news agenda with eye-catching proposals to crack down on executive jets as well as private swimming pools.

“We’ve just lived through a summer when we’ve seen the real impact of climate change for the first time and what are we doing? What are we prepared to do?” said leading MP Sandrine Rousseau.

She found herself at the centre of a national furore this week after suggesting men needed to cut down on emissions-heavy barbecued steak which they saw as a “symbol of virility.”

“What has become quite obvious is that climate impacts and climate hazards are happening throughout Europe to differing degrees and with differing hazards,” Carolina Cecilio from the E3G think-tank told AFP.

“It’s not limited to southern Europe, which is more used to periods of drought and forest fires,” she added.  

Greater awareness in big EU member states such as France, Germany and Italy could help “shape the political agenda,” Cecilio said. 

– Energy crisis – 

Some campaigners see an opportunity for real change in the energy crisis that has gripped Europe since Russia began turning off its gas deliveries following its invasion of Ukraine.

“I think that the scale and the coming together of overlapping crises should drive us to really question our use of energy,” Lola Vallejo from the IDDRI think-tank told AFP.

“We can only hope that the summer we’ve just lived through will play a role in accelerating our collective will,” said Vallejo.

But a working paper from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in June laid bare the scale of the challenge.

Analysing survey results from 20 mostly rich countries, its experts concluded that climate change awareness was high, with 60-90 percent of people understanding it was caused by human activity.

The problem was their willingness to change.

“Respondents were generally unwilling to limit their beef or meat consumption significantly. Few are willing to limit driving or heating or cooling their homes by a lot,” the authors wrote.

Italy’s elections on September 25 will be a test of how much climate change has really hit home, with campaigning so far dominated by worries about the cost of living. 

Polls suggests that the next government could be a coalition of far-right and right-wing parties who have put it low on their agenda.

UN inspectors are expected to arrive at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine on Thursday

UN inspectors pressed on towards a Russian-held nuclear plant in southern Ukraine Thursday despite an early shelling attack, as the ICRC warned the consequences of a strike on the facility could be “catastrophic”.

Just before the 14-strong team from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) left for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Ukraine said Russian troops had shelled the town next door.

The area around the plant — Europe’s largest nuclear facility — has suffered repeated shelling, with both sides accusing the other of responsibility, sparking global concern over the risk of an accident. 

“It is high time to stop playing with fire and instead take concrete measures to protect this facility.. from any military operations,” ICRC chief Robert Mardini told reporters in Kyiv. 

“The slightest miscalculation could trigger devastation that we will regret for decades.”

Ukraine’s nuclear agency Energoatom said later that one of the six reactors at the Russian-held nuclear plant was shut down Thursday as an emergency protection measure following the shelling in the area.

“Today at 4:57 am (0157 GMT), due to another mortar shelling by the Russian occupying forces at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant site, the emergency protection was activated and operating power unit 5 was shut down,” it said.

Mardini said it was “encouraging” that the IAEA team was en route to inspect the plant because the stakes were “immense”.

“When hazardous sites become battlegrounds, the consequences for millions of people and the environment can be catastrophic and last many years,” he said.

Just before leaving the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said his team had been updated about the shelling but would press on anyway.

“We are not stopping,” he vowed, despite being aware there that in crossing the frontline into Russian-held territory, there was a security “grey area.. where the risks are significant”. 

“I believe we have to proceed with this. We have a very important mission to accomplish.”

– Fresh shelling attack –

Earlier, the mayor of Energodar, the town next to the plant, said it had come under sustained attack early on Thursday. 

In an 8:00 am (0500 GMT) update on Telegram, Mayor Dmytro Orlov said that since dawn, Russian troops had “shelled Energodar with mortars and used automatic weapons and rockets,” posting images of damaged buildings and spiralling smoke.

But Moscow accused Kyiv of smuggling in up to 60 military “saboteurs”, saying they reached the area near the plant just after dawn and that Russian troops had taken “measures to annihilate the enemy”. 

Grossi on Wednesday said the IAEA would seek to establish a “permanent presence” at the plant to avoid a nuclear disaster at the facility which is located on the frontline of the fighting.

“My mission is… to prevent a nuclear accident and preserve the largest nuclear power plant in Europe,” he said. 

– ‘Explicit safety guarantees’ –

Although Zaporizhzhia is normally about a two-hour drive from the plant, it was not immediately long it would take the IAEA team to get there after crossing the frontline into Russian-held areas.

The plant has been occupied by Russian troops since March and Ukraine has accused Russia of deploying hundreds of soldiers and storing ammunition there.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of staging “provocations” aimed at disrupting the work of the IAEA mission. 

“Sadly, Russia is not stopping its provocations precisely in the direction the mission needs to travel to reach the plant,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Tuesday after meeting Grossi.

And in Moscow, the Russian defence ministry accused Kyiv of “continued provocations aimed at disrupting the work of the IAEA mission” saying it had shelled the area around the plant on Tuesday hitting a building containing “the solid radioactive waste processing complex”.

– Counteroffensive in the south –

Meanwhile, intensive fighting raged across the nearby southern region of Kherson where Ukraine began a counteroffensive on Monday. 

Most of the region and its provincial capital of the same name were seized by Russian forces at the start of the invasion six months ago.

With the war in the eastern Donbas region largely stalled, analysts have said for weeks that combat is likely to shift south to break the stalemate before winter comes.

Meanwhile, a British medic volunteering in Ukraine died in the fighting, the foreign ministry in London said on Thursday. It said he had died on August 24 but gave no further details. 

Volunteers from the Al-Khidmat Foundation are using boats to reach isolated villages in the vasted flooded plains of Sindh

The southern Pakistan village of Karim Bakhsh is almost entirely under muddy water after catastrophic monsoon rains — hardly any stable buildings are left for shelter, the wheat silos are empty and venomous snakes are a constant threat.

But unlike the tens of thousands of people who have fled their flooded homes, villages and towns across the country, several families here have refused to leave.

Without formal property deeds, many residents are worried that if they take off opportunists will seize their land, where their families have lived for generations.

“We had ownership papers from the British colonial government,” Intizar Ahmed, a 55-year-old farmer, told AFP Wednesday while standing on an elevated patch of land near his mostly submerged homestead in Sindh province.

“But we lost them many years ago in a flood like this… (besides) we have no place to go.”

Others said they worried about the fate of their livestock — a resource far too valuable for poor villagers to leave behind.

“We have buffaloes, cows and goats… if we leave the cattle behind they would be stolen,” said Shah Mohammad, 35.

Mohammad and others were scrambling to find food not just for themselves, but for their animals too.

There was enough for the animals to eat for now, he said, but villagers have been struggling to replenish empty wheat bins.

– Cut off from the world –

Aid delivered by boat by charities is the only lifeline for those who can’t or don’t want to leave Karim Bakhsh.

The village has been besieged by murky floodwaters extending for more than a kilometre in some spots.

Villagers gathered on the few dry patches of land to wait for a boat operated by the Alkhidmat Foundation — a Pakistan-based humanitarian organisation — as it puttered through the waist-deep water in the streets.

It was the first aid delivery in days.

The boat made multiple stops in the village so relief workers could hand out tents, food packages and other supplies.

An aid worker said the charity had decided to make the deliveries after it found out that some families did not want to leave.

At every stop, there was evidence of the destruction wrought by the torrential rains and floods — the worst in decades.

Most homes and structures were ruined, and villagers were desperate for any material that might help build temporary shelter from both the rain and — when it came out — the scorching sun.

“Our homes fell… We cut down the trees and used that wood to hold up whatever was left of our walls,” said Gul Badshah, 70.

Maqbool Ahmed, another resident, prepared to face a different local threat especially common during floods: venomous snakes.

He connected a small lamp to a car battery, placing the setup on an earthen mound.

“We light it up in the night to guard against snakes,” he told AFP.

“Sometimes, cobras and vipers sneak into our place.”

UN inspectors are expected to arrive at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine on Thursday

UN inspectors vowed to press on with a visit to a Russian-held nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine on Thursday despite an early shelling attack on the town next to the facility.

“We are aware of the current situation. There has been military activity.. several minutes ago,” International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi told reporters just before leaving. 

“But we are not stopping.”

His remarks came as the mayor of Energodar, the town next to the plant, said it had come under sustained attack early on Thursday. 

Since dawn, Russian troops had “shelled Energodar with mortars and used automatic weapons and rockets,” Mayor Dmytro Orlov said on Telegram, publishing pictures of damaged buildings with smoke spiralling above them.

But Moscow accused Kyiv of smuggling in up to 60 military “saboteurs” who reached the area near the plant just after dawn, saying Russian troops had taken “measures to annihilate the enemy”. 

“We know there is a grey area where the last line of Ukrainian defence ends and the first line of the Russian occupying forces begins where the risks are significant,” Grossi before his 14-strong team left to cross the frontline into Russian-held territory. 

“I believe we have to proceed with this. We have a very important mission to accomplish.”

Grossi had on Wednesday said the IAEA would seek to establish a “permanent presence” at the plant to avoid a nuclear disaster at the facility which is located on the frontline of the fighting.

“My mission is… to prevent a nuclear accident and preserve the largest nuclear power plant in Europe,” he said. 

The area around the facility, which lies on the south side of the Dnipro River, has been hit by repeated shelling, stoking global concern. 

Both sides have traded blame over attacks in the area. 

– ‘Explicit safety guarantees’ –

Although Zaporizhzhia is normally about a two-hour drive from the plant, it was not immediately clear how the IAEA team would reach the site which would involve crossing the frontline to enter Russian-held areas.

The plant has been occupied by Russian troops since March and Ukraine has accused Russia of deploying hundreds of soldiers and storing ammunition there.

Kyiv has insisted the team access the plant via Ukrainian-held territory.

“Sadly, Russia is not stopping its provocations precisely in the direction the mission needs to travel to reach the plant,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Tuesday after meeting Grossi.

In Moscow, the Russian defence ministry accused Kyiv of “continued provocations aimed at disrupting the work of the IAEA mission” saying it had shelled the area around the plant on Tuesday hitting a building containing “the solid radioactive waste processing complex”.

– Counteroffensive in the south –

Meanwhile, intensive fighting raged across the nearby southern region of Kherson where Ukraine began a counteroffensive on Monday. 

Most of the region and its provincial capital of the same name were seized by Russian forces at the start of the invasion six months ago.

With the war in the eastern Donbas region largely stalled, analysts have said for weeks that combat is likely to shift south to break the stalemate before winter comes.

As Ukraine presses its offensive, the White House said there would be an announcement in the coming days on additional military aid for Kyiv, on top of $13 billion already pledged by Washington.

Earlier on Wednesday, EU foreign ministers agreed to suspend a 2007 visa facilitation deal with Russia, which will make it more difficult and longer for Russian nationals to get visas. 

Zelensky, who wants a total ban on EU tourist visas for Russians, said Wednesday that Russian society must pay the price for the war.

“I think it is humiliating for Europe when it is considered simply as one big boutique or restaurant,” he said in his daily address to the nation. “Europe is a territory of values first of all, not primitive consumption.”

Volunteers from the Al-Khidmat Foundation are using boats to reach isolated villages in the vasted flooded plains of Sindh

The southern Pakistan village of Karim Bakhsh is almost entirely under muddy water after catastrophic monsoon rains — hardly any stable buildings are left for shelter, the wheat silos are empty and venomous snakes are a constant threat.

But unlike the tens of thousands of people who have fled their flooded homes, villages and towns across the country, several families here have refused to leave.

Without formal property deeds, many residents are worried that if they take off opportunists will seize their land, where their families have lived for generations.

“We had ownership papers from the British colonial government,” Intizar Ahmed, a 55-year-old farmer, told AFP Wednesday while standing on an elevated patch of land near his mostly submerged homestead in Sindh province.

“But we lost them many years ago in a flood like this… (besides) we have no place to go.”

Others said they worried about the fate of their livestock — a resource far too valuable for poor villagers to leave behind.

“We have buffaloes, cows and goats… if we leave the cattle behind they would be stolen,” said Shah Mohammad, 35.

Mohammad and others were scrambling to find food not just for themselves, but for their animals too.

There was enough for the animals to eat for now, he said, but villagers have been struggling to replenish empty wheat bins.

– Cut off from the world –

Aid delivered by boat by charities is the only lifeline for those who can’t or don’t want to leave Karim Bakhsh.

The village has been besieged by murky floodwaters extending for more than a kilometre in some spots.

Villagers gathered on the few dry patches of land to wait for a boat operated by the Alkhidmat Foundation — a Pakistan-based humanitarian organisation — as it puttered through the waist-deep water in the streets.

It was the first aid delivery in days.

The boat made multiple stops in the village so relief workers could hand out tents, food packages and other supplies.

An aid worker said the charity had decided to make the deliveries after it found out that some families did not want to leave.

At every stop, there was evidence of the destruction wrought by the torrential rains and floods — the worst in decades.

Most homes and structures were ruined, and villagers were desperate for any material that might help build temporary shelter from both the rain and — when it came out — the scorching sun.

“Our homes fell… We cut down the trees and used that wood to hold up whatever was left of our walls,” said Gul Badshah, 70.

Maqbool Ahmed, another resident, prepared to face a different local threat especially common during floods: venomous snakes.

He connected a small lamp to a car battery, placing the setup on an earthen mound.

“We light it up in the night to guard against snakes,” he told AFP.

“Sometimes, cobras and vipers sneak into our place.”

Previous treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis required up to 23 pills a day — the new BPaL course needs five

Volodymyr is celebrating a major milestone on Wednesday — it’s his final day of taking a new treatment hailed as a turning point in the fight against drug-resistant tuberculosis.

The 25-year-old doctor in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv said he had nasty neurological side effects when he was on a previous drug regimen, which takes up to two years, involves a huge number of pills and is less than 60-percent effective. 

But the new treatment course took just six months, and gave him very few side effects. “It was very easy,” he told AFP.

A scan on Wednesday showed he was clear of tuberculosis, and he plans to start work next week after eight months off sick.

“Now I can start life again,” said Volodymyr, who did not give his last name.

Tuberculosis, once called consumption, was the world’s biggest infectious killer before the arrival of Covid-19, with 1.5 million people dying from the disease each year.

Around five percent of new cases are resistant to commonly prescribed antibiotics, making them difficult to treat.

However a new drug regimen, called BPaL because it combines the antibiotics bedaquiline, pretomanid and linezolid, has been seen as a breakthrough since it was first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2019.

– From 23 to five pills a day –

Research in 2020 showed that the BPaL regimen cured more than 90 percent of drug-resistant patients, however there was a high rate of side effects linked to linezolid, including nerve pain and bone marrow suppression.

But a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday indicated that the dosage of linezolid can be halved.

A trial involving 181 participants with drug-resistant tuberculosis was carried out in Russia, South Africa, Georgia and Moldova — all countries with high TB rates.

It found that while 1,200 milligrams of linezolid over six months had a cure rate of 93 percent, that number only dropped to 91 percent if the dosage was halved to 600 milligrams.

The number of participants with the side of peripheral neuropathy — which causes nerve pain — fell from 38 to 24 percent at the lower dosage, while the rate of bone marrow suppression dropped from 22 to two percent.

The study’s lead author, Francesca Conradie of South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand, said she was “overwhelmed with how successful this regimen was”.

“This is the beginning of the end of drug-resistant TB,” she told AFP.

“The quicker you treat someone’s TB, the less infectious they are — it’s like Covid in many ways.”

It is also far easier for patients to take BPaL, she added, saying previous courses could involve 23 pills a day — and up to 14,000 total pills over the maximum two-year course. 

BPaL involves five pills a day — and fewer than 750 over six months.

– Could TB surpass Covid? –

Nataliia Lytvynenko, who has overseen BPaL treatments in Ukraine, said the more manageable amount of pills meant it was easier for patients to continue treatment after being displaced by the war in her country.

The World Health Organization indicated earlier this year that it would soon update its guidelines to recommend most patients with drug-resistant TB use BPaL with 600 milligrams of linezolid.

Two experts not involved in Wednesday’s study said the research and the WHO guidance were “major advances”.

The BPaL treatment “is one of the defining achievements of the tuberculosis research community in this century,” Guy Thwaites of Britain’s Oxford University and Nguyen Viet Nhung of Vietnam’s National Tuberculosis Control Programme wrote in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The advances come amid warnings that the pandemic has stalled progress against tuberculosis.

“I very much worry that TB will — whether it’s this year or next — again become the largest single killer of any infectious disease in the world,” said Mel Spigelman, the president of the non-profit TB Alliance which funded the research.

Volodymyr meanwhile said he hoped that progress would continue so the treatment timeline gets even shorter.

“Maybe it will be two months — or even one,” he said with a smile.

California's power grid is struggling to cope with the huge demand for air conditioning during an extreme heat

Californians were told Wednesday not to charge their electric vehicles during peak hours, just days after the state said it would stop selling gas-powered cars, as the aging electricity grid struggles with a fearsome heatwave.

Temperatures as high as 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44 degrees Celsius) were forecast in some Los Angeles suburbs as a huge heat dome bakes a swathe of the western United States.

The sweltering weather will put huge demands on the already-stretched power grid, especially when people crank up the air conditioners during the broiling hours after work and school.

“Consumers are urged to conserve power by setting thermostats to 78 degrees or higher, if health permits, avoiding use of major appliances and turning off unnecessary lights,” said the California Independent System Operator, which runs the state’s power grid.

Between 4:00 pm and 9:00 pm, “they should also avoid charging electric vehicles.”

“Reducing energy use during a Flex Alert can help stabilize the power grid during tight supply conditions and prevent further emergency measures, including rotating power outages.”

California’s power companies routinely ask households to limit their usage during the so-called “shoulder hours,” when rooftop solar panels stop producing electricity but demand remains high because of still-elevated temperatures.

The call to limit electric vehicle charging comes a week after state regulators banned the sale of new petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles from 2035.

All but a handful of SUVs, cars and light trucks will have to produce zero tailpipe emissions, with only highly efficient plug-in hybrids permitted to burn fossil fuels.

The move was hailed as a game-changer for the EV industry because of the size of California’s auto market and the potential it has to set national, and even international, standards.

– ‘Dangerously hot’ –

Wednesday’s plea to conserve power was greeted with derision on Twitter, where some said it was proof the state had not thought through its green agenda.

“Perhaps we should figure out how to fix our electric grid before we outlaw gas cars…just a thought,” tweeted @AerysGG

“So………this is what they want. Walking? Hitchin’ A Ride?? Moving to a more reasonable state??” tweeted @cinda_scheef

In response to soaring power demands, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency that temporarily removes pollution controls on fossil fuel power plants to allow them to generate more electricity.

He pointed to the punishing drought in the US West that has crippled hydroelectric plants, and noted the direct effect that climate change is having on day-to-day lives.

“Energy reliability becomes more and more challenging… because demand increases at the same time supply decreases,” he said.

He also called on households to do their part “to help us get through the next week or so, to turn up a little bit the thermostat at home to 78 degrees, try to pre-cool earlier in the day; try not to use too much electricity… between 4:00 pm and 9:00 pm.”

The National Weather Service has issued an “excessive heat warning” for most of California, as well as parts of Arizona and Nevada.

“Dangerously hot conditions expected… until Sunday evening,” the NWS said.

“A prolonged period of excessive heat will significantly increase the potential for heat related illnesses, particularly for those working or participating in outdoor activities.”

“Those without access to adequate or reliable cooling or hydration will be at most risk, but much of the population could be susceptible to impacts as well,” the NWS warned.

Nighttime temperatures are not expected to offer much relief, with lows struggling to get below 80 degrees Fahrenheit in many places.

It is not unusual for southern California to experience heat waves in September, but temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit are considered hot even for a place almost perpetually baked by sunshine.

The heat wave comes after swathes of the southwest were lashed with torrential rains over recent weeks.

Some areas, including the notoriously dusty Death Valley, suffered flooding, and one person died after being swept away in Zion National Park in Utah.

Scientists say global warming, which is being driven chiefly by humanity’s use of fossil fuels, is making natural weather variations more extreme.

Heat waves are getting hotter and more intense, while storms are getting wetter and, in many cases, more dangerous.