AFP UK

Map locating the epicentre of a magnitude 6.4 earthquake recorded in the northern Philippines on October 25, 11 km east of the city of Dolores

A 6.4-magnitude earthquake rocked the northern Philippines late Tuesday, the US Geological Service said, sending panicked residents out into the streets with local officials warning about the potential for damage.

“We are expecting damage here,” seismologist Charm Villamil told reporters following the quake, which struck around 10:59 pm (1459 GMT) near the upland town of Dolores.

She said the impact on buildings would depend on their structural integrity as well as the characteristics of the ground where they were built.

The civil defence office in Abra province, where Dolores is located, told AFP there were no immediate reports of casualties, but the extent of the damage would not be known until morning.

The quake, which occurred at a relatively shallow depth of 15.2 kilometres (9.4 miles), was felt as far away as the capital Manila, more than 330 kilometres to the south.

Reached by phone, Dolores police patrolman Jeffrey Blanes told AFP that “buildings were shaking so people ran outside.”

“We are unable to make a thorough assessment of the impact now because it is nighttime and we are also thinking about our people’s safety,” rescuer Joel de Leon told AFP by phone.

In the city of Batac, about 60 kilometres north of Dolores, patients and staff were evacuated from the 200-bed Mariano Marcos Memorial Hospital as structural experts checked the building for possible damage, staff said.

In July, a 7.0-magnitude quake also in the mountainous Abra province triggered landslides and ground fissures, killing 11 people and injuring several hundred others, according to the official count.

Quakes are a daily occurrence in the Philippines, which sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic as well as volcanic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

The nation’s civil defence office regularly holds drills simulating earthquake scenarios along active fault lines.

In October 2013, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck the central island of Bohol, killing more than 200 people.

That powerful quake altered the island’s landscape and a “ground rupture” pushed up a stretch of earth by up to three metres, creating a wall of rock above the epicentre.

King Charles III 'has been a very strong advocate for climate action and a role model'

Egypt on Tuesday renewed its invitation to King Charles III for next month’s COP27 climate summit after the British monarch’s plans to attend were reportedly quashed by ex-Prime Minister Liz Truss.  

“From our point of view in relation to his majesty King Charles, it’s an open invitation,” senior diplomat Mohamed Nasr said ahead of the 12-day UN meet in Sharm El-Sheik, which starts on November 6.

“He has been a very strong advocate for climate action and a role model,” Nasr told journalists in an online briefing. “We still hope that he can make it.”

Nasr also said that, so far, more than 90 heads of state and government had confirmed they will attend the summit, which is tasked with accelerating cuts in carbon emissions and providing climate finance for developing countries.

In early October, Buckingham Palace confirmed that Charles III would not go to COP27 after news reports saying Truss had raised objections to his participation.

But Truss stepped down as prime minister after only 44 days in office, replaced by fellow Conservative Rishi Sunak.

Britain hosted last year’s watershed COP26 UN climate conference in Glasgow, which saw initiatives to curb deforestation and methane emissions, but left poor nations seeking financial support deeply frustrated.

Nasr said he hoped Sunak and other rich nation leaders would carry through on their promises in Glasgow.

“We know there are economic challenges facing the UK and other countries, but we hope those challenges do not lead to backsliding on pledges made and not delivered,” he said.

Apparently neither US President Joe Biden nor China’s top leader Xi Jinping have confirmed they will come to COP27.

“We hope they will be there because the two countries are leading on climate change and their cooperation and role has always been instrumental for progress,” he said.

US media have reported that Biden plans to attend.   

Charles III took the throne after the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II, who addressed the COP26 summit last year with the blessing of the Tory government led by Truss’s predecessor Boris Johnson.

Charles and his son William also addressed the event.

Charles III is a committed environmentalist, with a long history of campaigning for better conservation, organic farming and tackling climate change.

Italy's new government vows to invest in alternative energy sources

A state-appointed commissioner gave the green light Tuesday to a contested new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal considered crucial to Italy’s plan to wean itself off Russian gas.

Its approval came as new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told parliament her government’s priority would be helping businesses and households cope with sky-high energy bills and investing in alternative energy sources.

The floating storage and regasification unit will be set up in the port of Piombino in Tuscany, Commissioner Eugenio Giani told a press conference in Florence, despite opposition from environmental activists and locals.

The Golar Tundra, owned by Italian gas group Snam, is expected to be operational by the end of March and will allow gas to be easily transported to the country’s heavily industrialised north.

The project was a key part of former prime minister Mario Draghi’s plan to reduce Italy’s reliance on Russian gas following the invasion of Ukraine.

His energy minister Roberto Cingolani, who is staying on in an advisory role to help Meloni, said earlier this month that the Piombino terminal is “essential to national security”.

This was echoed by the head of Italian energy giant Eni, Claudio Descalzi, who said Italy “absolutely needs” the unit to stave off a crisis in 2023, which is set to be “a much more complex year”.

The terminal will mean “lower energy bills for 60 million Italians” as well as “the ability to… have gas more easily without depending on Russia,” Commissioner Giani said Tuesday.

– ‘Unfeasible’ –

But unions, local citizens and even Piombino’s mayor have said it will pose health and safety risks for locals and tourists who travel between the port city and the island of Elba, a popular holiday destination.

And environmental associations have warned the terminal, which will receive LNG and transforms it back into natural gas, will slow down Italy’s transition to renewable energy.

Greenpeace Italy has slammed the project as based on “incomplete assessments, superficial considerations and unfeasible timelines”.

Simone Tagliapietra, adjunct professor of energy, climate and environmental policy at the Johns Hopkins University – SAIS Europe, told AFP that regasification units “do not have a particular environmental impact”, nor would this one constitute “an eyesore”.

The Piombino unit is not only “fundamental for Italy” but also an energy source “diversification that benefits the whole of Europe”, he said.

Giani said the terminal would remain in the port for three years, after which it would be moved elsewhere.

Piombino mayor Francesco Ferrari has said he will appeal against the decision.

Before the war in Ukraine, Italy imported 95 percent of the gas it consumed.

Forty percent of that came from Russia, a figure that has since dropped to 10 percent after Draghi took steps to boost gas from other producers, while also accelerating a shift towards renewable energy.

Officials say damage is expected from a magnitude 6.4 earthquake that struck the northern Philippines on October 25, 2022

A 6.4-magnitude earthquake rocked the northern Philippines late Tuesday, the US Geological Service said, with local officials warning about the potential for damage.

“We are expecting damage here,” seismologist Charm Villamil told reporters following the quake, which struck around 10:59 pm (1459 GMT) near the upland town of Dolores.

She said the impact on buildings would depend on their structural integrity as well as the characteristics of the ground where they were built.

The quake, which occurred at a relatively shallow depth of 15.2 kilometres (9.4 miles), was felt as far away as the capital Manila, more than 330 kilometres to the south.

Reached by phone, Dolores police patrolman Jeffrey Blanes told AFP that “buildings were shaking so people ran outside.”

“All of the police personnel went out of the police station because of the quake,” he said, adding that there are currently “no reports of damage or casualties.”

In July, a 7.0-magnitude quake in the same area triggered landslides and ground fissures in the mountainous region, killing 11 people and injuring several hundred others, according to the official count.

Quakes are a daily occurrence in the Philippines, which sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic as well as volcanic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

The nation’s civil defence office regularly holds drills simulating earthquake scenarios along active fault lines.

In October 2013, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck the central island of Bohol, killing more than 200 people.

That powerful quake altered the island’s landscape and a “ground rupture” pushed up a stretch of earth by up to three metres, creating a wall of rock above the epicentre.

Bangladeshi officials said nearly 10,000 homes were either "destroyed or damaged" in the storm

At least 24 people died after Cyclone Sitrang slammed into Bangladesh, forcing the evacuation of about a million people from their homes, officials said Tuesday.

Cyclones — the equivalent of hurricanes in the Atlantic or typhoons in the Pacific — are a regular menace in the region but scientists say climate change is likely making them more intense and frequent.

Sitrang made landfall in southern Bangladesh late Monday but authorities managed to get about a million people to safety before the monster weather system hit.

Around 10 million people were without power in districts along the coast on Tuesday, while schools were shut across much of the country’s south.

Police and government officials said at least 24 people died, mostly after they were hit by falling trees, with two dying in the north on the Jamuna River when their boat sank in squally weather.

A Myanmar national working on a ship also died by falling off the deck, an official said.

“We still have not got all the reports of damages,” government official Jebun Nahar told AFP.

Eight people are missing from a dredging boat that sank during the storm late Monday night in the Bay of Bengal, near the country’s largest industrial park at Mirsarai, regional fire department chief Abdullah Pasha said.

“Strong wind flipped the dredger and it sank instantly in the Bay of Bengal,” he told AFP, adding that divers were searching for survivors.

People evacuated from low-lying regions such as remote islands and river banks were moved to thousands of multi-storey cyclone shelters, Disaster Management Ministry secretary Kamrul Ahsan told AFP.

“They spent the night in cyclone shelters. And this morning many are heading back to their homes,” he said.

Ahsan said nearly 10,000 homes were either “destroyed or damaged” in the storm and around 1,000 shrimp farms had been washed away in floods. 

In some cases police had to cajole villagers who were reluctant to abandon their homes, officials said.

Trees were uprooted as far away as the capital Dhaka, hundreds of kilometres from the storm’s centre.

Heavy rains lashed much of the country, flooding cities such as Dhaka, Khulna and Barisal — which took on 324 millimetres (13 inches) of rainfall on Monday.

About 33,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, controversially relocated from the mainland to a storm-prone island in the Bay of Bengal, were ordered to stay indoors but there were no reports of casualties or damage, officials said.

– Panic and snakes –

The cyclone downed trees and brought widespread panic to the southern island of Maheshkhali after power and telecoms were cut.

“Such was the power of the wind we could not sleep in the night because of the fear that our homes will be destroyed. Snakes entered many homes. Water also inundated many homes,” said Tahmidul Islam, 25, a resident of Maheshkhali.

In the worst-affected Barisal region, teeming rains and heavy winds wreaked havoc on vegetable farms, district administrator Aminul Ahsan told AFP.

In the neighbouring Indian state of West Bengal, thousands of people were evacuated Monday to more than 100 relief centres, officials said, but there were no reports of damage and people were returning home on Tuesday.

Last year, more than a million people were evacuated along India’s east coast before Cyclone Yaas battered the area with winds gusting up to 155 kilometres (96 miles) an hour — equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane.

Cyclone Amphan, the second “super cyclone” recorded over the Bay of Bengal, killed more than 100 people in Bangladesh and India and affected millions when it hit in 2020.

In recent years, better forecasting and more effective evacuation planning have dramatically reduced the death toll from such storms. The worst recorded, in 1970, killed hundreds of thousands of people.

As well as 50 species of turtle, the study published in the journal Nature Communications also included recordings from three 'very strange animals' considered mute

More than 50 animal species previously thought to be mute actually communicate vocally, according to a study published on Tuesday which suggested the trait may have evolved in a common ancestor over 400 million years ago.  

The lead author of the study, evolutionary biologist Gabriel Jorgewich-Cohen, told AFP he first had the idea of recording apparently mute species while researching turtles in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.

“When I went back home, I decided to start recording my own pets,” Jorgewich-Cohen said. That included Homer, a turtle he has had since childhood.

To his great excitement, he discovered that Homer and his other pet turtles were making vocal sounds.

So he started recording other turtle species, sometimes using a hydrophone, a microphone for recording underwater.

“Every single species I recorded was producing sounds,” said Jorgewich-Cohen, a researcher at Zurich University in Switzerland.

“Then we started questioning how many more animals that are normally considered mute produce sounds.”

As well as 50 species of turtle, the study published in the journal Nature Communications also included recordings from three “very strange animals” considered mute, he said.

They include a type of lungfish, which has gills as well as lungs that allow it to survive on land, and a species of caecilian — a group of amphibians resembling a cross between a snake and a worm.

The research team also recorded a rare type of reptile only found in New Zealand called a tuatara, the only surviving member of an order called Rhynchocephalia which once spanned the globe.

All the animals made vocal sounds such as clicks and chirps or tonal noises, even if they were not very loud or only made them a few times a day.

– Common vocal ancestor –

The research team combined their findings with data on the evolutionary history of acoustic communication for 1,800 other species. 

They then used an analysis called “ancestral state reconstruction”, which calculates the probability of a shared link back through time.

It had previously been thought that tetrapods — four-limbed animals — and lungfishes had evolved vocal communication separately.

“But now we show the opposite,” Jorgewich-Cohen said. “They come from the same place”.

“What we found is that the common ancestor of this group was already producing sounds, and communicating using those sounds intentionally,” Jorgewich-Cohen.

The common ancestor lived at least 407 million years ago during the Palaeozoic era, the study said.

John Wiens — an evolutionary biology professor at Arizona University in the United States who was not involved in the research — said the suggestion that “acoustic communication arose in the common ancestor of lungfish and tetrapods is interesting and surprising”.

Wiens, who published a 2020 paper called “the origins of acoustic communication in vertebrates”, welcomed the new data for the additional species.

But he suggested the study might not “necessarily distinguish between animals making sounds and actual acoustic communication”.

Jorgewich-Cohen said the researchers had indeed set out to identify sounds animals made specifically for communicating, by comparing video and audio recordings to find matches for particular behaviour. 

They also recorded the animals in different groups “so we could tell if there are sounds that are only produced in specific situations”, he said.

He acknowledged that some species were hard to study as they do not vocalise frequently and “tend to be shy”, adding that further research was needed.

Solar eclipses occur when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, casting its shadow down onto our planet

A partial solar eclipse began over Iceland on Tuesday as the rare celestial spectacle started to make its way east across a swathe of the Northern Hemisphere.

The partial eclipse began at 0858 GMT and will end off the coast of India at 1302 GMT, crossing parts of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East on its way, according to the IMCCE institute of France’s Paris Observatory.

Amateur astronomers must not stare directly at the eclipse, which will not darken the sky, and should instead wear protective glasses to avoid eye damage, experts said.

Solar eclipses occur when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, casting its shadow down onto our planet. 

A total solar eclipse happens when the Moon completely blocks the Sun’s disk, momentarily plunging a portion of the Earth into complete darkness.

However Tuesday’s eclipse is only partial, and the “Moon’s shadow will not touch the surface of the Earth at any point,” the Paris Observatory said in a statement.

The Moon will cover a maximum of 82 percent of the Sun over Kazakhstan, but it will not be enough darken the daylight, Paris Observatory astronomer Florent Deleflie said.

At least 95 percent of the Sun needs to be obscured to get a “sense of darkness,” Deleflie told AFP.

“It won’t be spectacular, but it’s always an event for amateur astronomers — and it can make for beautiful photos.”

– Chasing eclipses –

Ryan Milligan, an astrophysicist at Northern Ireland’s Queen’s University Belfast, is a self-described “solar eclipse chaser” who has travelled the world to witness the rare celestial events.

Though Tuesday’s eclipse “will be a slight event”, Milligan told AFP that as an eclipse chaser, it will be “exciting to get that buzz back again”.

But even with “the brightest clear skies, you will be none the wiser of what’s going on above your head” unless you have the correct glasses, he added.

It can also be observed by poking a small hole in one piece of paper and letting the sunshine stream through onto another piece. 

The holes in kitchen colanders or even Ritz crackers can also be used, Milligan added.

Milligan has travelled to countries including Chile to Turkey to see a total of 10 eclipses. 

This week he booked a camper van for a trip to Western Australia in April next year to see a total eclipse that will last 76 seconds.

He is also heading to Mexico in April 2024 for what he calls “the big one” — a total eclipse that will pass over North America.

Closer to his home in Northern Ireland, a total eclipse will be visible in Spain in 2026. 

To find out when eclipses can be seen in different countries, Milligan recommended the website timeanddate.com/eclipse.

Despite Tuesday not being the most exciting event, Milligan urged those interested to plan for the next total eclipse.

“People always talk about the northern lights being on their bucket list,” Milligan said. “But a total solar eclipse is the most spectacular sight in nature.”

Solar eclipses occur when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, casting its shadow down onto our planet

A partial solar eclipse began over Iceland on Tuesday as the rare celestial spectacle started to make its way east across a swathe of the Northern Hemisphere.

The partial eclipse began at 0858 GMT and will end off the coast of India at 1302 GMT, crossing parts of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East on its way, according to the IMCCE institute of France’s Paris Observatory.

Amateur astronomers must not stare directly at the eclipse, which will not darken the sky, and should instead wear protective glasses to avoid eye damage, experts said.

Solar eclipses occur when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, casting its shadow down onto our planet. 

A total solar eclipse happens when the Moon completely blocks the Sun’s disk, momentarily plunging a portion of the Earth into complete darkness.

However Tuesday’s eclipse is only partial, and the “Moon’s shadow will not touch the surface of the Earth at any point,” the Paris Observatory said in a statement.

The Moon will cover a maximum of 82 percent of the Sun over Kazakhstan, but it will not be enough darken the daylight, Paris Observatory astronomer Florent Deleflie said.

At least 95 percent of the Sun needs to be obscured to get a “sense of darkness,” Deleflie told AFP.

“It won’t be spectacular, but it’s always an event for amateur astronomers — and it can make for beautiful photos.”

– Chasing eclipses –

Ryan Milligan, an astrophysicist at Northern Ireland’s Queen’s University Belfast, is a self-described “solar eclipse chaser” who has travelled the world to witness the rare celestial events.

Though Tuesday’s eclipse “will be a slight event”, Milligan told AFP that as an eclipse chaser, it will be “exciting to get that buzz back again”.

But even with “the brightest clear skies, you will be none the wiser of what’s going on above your head” unless you have the correct glasses, he added.

It can also be observed by poking a small hole in one piece of paper and letting the sunshine stream through onto another piece. 

The holes in kitchen colanders or even Ritz crackers can also be used, Milligan added.

Milligan has travelled to countries including Chile to Turkey to see a total of 10 eclipses. 

This week he booked a camper van for a trip to Western Australia in April next year to see a total eclipse that will last 76 seconds.

He is also heading to Mexico in April 2024 for what he calls “the big one” — a total eclipse that will pass over North America.

Closer to his home in Northern Ireland, a total eclipse will be visible in Spain in 2026. 

To find out when eclipses can be seen in different countries, Milligan recommended the website timeanddate.com/eclipse.

Despite Tuesday not being the most exciting event, Milligan urged those interested to plan for the next total eclipse.

“People always talk about the northern lights being on their bucket list,” Milligan said. “But a total solar eclipse is the most spectacular sight in nature.”

Sitrang made landfall in southern Bangladesh, forcing the evacuation of around a million people

At least 16 people died after Cyclone Sitrang slammed into Bangladesh, forcing the evacuation of about a million people from their homes, officials said Tuesday.

Cyclones — the equivalent of hurricanes in the Atlantic or typhoons in the Pacific — are a regular menace but scientists say climate change is likely making them more intense and frequent.

Sitrang made landfall in southern Bangladesh late Monday but authorities managed to get about a million people to safety before the monster weather system hit.

Around 10 million people were without power in districts along the coast on Tuesday, while schools were shut across much of the country’s south.

Government official Jebun Nahar said 16 people died, mostly after they were hit by falling trees, with two killed when their boat sank in squally weather in the Jamuna River in the north. 

“We still have not got all the reports of damages,” she told AFP.

Eight people are missing from a dredging boat that sank during the storm late Monday night in the Bay of Bengal, near the country’s largest industrial park at Mirsarai, regional fire department chief Abdullah Pasha said.

“Strong wind flipped the dredger and it sank instantly in the Bay of Bengal,” he told AFP, adding that divers were searching for survivors.

People evacuated from low-lying regions such as remote islands and river banks were moved to thousands of multi-storey cyclone shelters, Disaster Management Ministry secretary Kamrul Ahsan told AFP.

“They spent the night in cyclone shelters. And this morning many are heading back to their homes,” he said.

Ahsan said nearly 10,000 homes were either “destroyed or damaged” in the storm and around 1,000 shrimp farms had been washed away in floods. 

In some cases police had to cajole villagers who were reluctant to abandon their homes, officials said.

Trees were uprooted as far away as the capital Dhaka, hundreds of kilometres from the storm’s centre.

Heavy rains lashed much of the country, flooding cities such as Dhaka, Khulna and Barisal — which took on 324 millimetres (13 inches) of rainfall on Monday.

About 33,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, controversially relocated from the mainland to a storm-prone island in the Bay of Bengal, were ordered to stay indoors but there were no reports of casualties or damage, officials said.

– Panic and snakes –

The cyclone uprooted trees and brought widespread panic to the southern island of Maheshkhali after power and telecoms were cut.

“Such was the power of the wind we could not sleep in the night because of the fear that our homes will be destroyed. Snakes entered many homes. Water also inundated many homes,” said Tahmidul Islam, 25, a resident of Maheshkhali.  

In the worst-affected Barisal region, teeming rains and heavy winds wreaked havoc on vegetable farms, district administrator Aminul Ahsan told AFP.

In the neighbouring Indian state of West Bengal, thousands of people were evacuated Monday to more than 100 relief centres, officials said, but there were no reports of damage and people were returning home on Tuesday.

Last year, more than a million people were evacuated along India’s east coast before Cyclone Yaas battered the area with winds gusting up to 155 kilometres (96 miles) an hour — equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane.

Cyclone Amphan, the second “super cyclone” recorded over the Bay of Bengal, killed more than 100 people in Bangladesh and India and affected millions when it hit in 2020.

In recent years, better forecasting and more effective evacuation planning have dramatically reduced the death toll from such storms. The worst recorded, in 1970, killed hundreds of thousands of people.

A partial solar eclipse in Iraq in 2019. Tuesday's eclipse is not expected to darken the sky

A partial solar eclipse began over Iceland on Tuesday as the rare celestial spectacle started to make its way east across a swathe of the Northern Hemisphere.

The partial eclipse began at 0858 GMT and will end off the coast of India at 1302 GMT, crossing parts of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East on its way, according to the IMCCE institute of France’s Paris Observatory.

Amateur astronomers must not stare directly at the eclipse, which will not darken the sky, and should instead wear protective glasses to avoid eye damage, experts said.

Solar eclipses occur when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, casting its shadow down onto our planet. 

A total solar eclipse happens when the Moon completely blocks the Sun’s disk, momentarily plunging a portion of the Earth into complete darkness.

However Tuesday’s eclipse is only partial, and the “Moon’s shadow will not touch the surface of the Earth at any point,” the Paris Observatory said in a statement.

The Moon will cover a maximum of 82 percent of the Sun over Kazakhstan, but it will not be enough darken the daylight, Paris Observatory astronomer Florent Deleflie said.

At least 95 percent of the Sun needs to be obscured to get a “sense of darkness,” Deleflie told AFP.

“It won’t be spectacular, but it’s always an event for amateur astronomers — and it can make for beautiful photos.”

– Chasing eclipses –

Ryan Milligan, an astrophysicist at Northern Ireland’s Queen’s University Belfast, is a self-described “solar eclipse chaser” who has travelled the world to witness the rare celestial events.

Though Tuesday’s eclipse “will be a slight event”, Milligan told AFP that as an eclipse chaser, it will be “exciting to get that buzz back again”.

But even with “the brightest clear skies, you will be none the wiser of what’s going on above your head” unless you have the correct glasses, he added.

It can also be observed by poking a small hole in one piece of paper and letting the sunshine stream through onto another piece. 

The holes in kitchen colanders or even Ritz crackers can also be used, Milligan added.

Milligan has travelled to countries including Chile to Turkey to see a total of 10 eclipses. 

This week he booked a camper van for a trip to Western Australia in April next year to see a total eclipse that will last 76 seconds.

He is also heading to Mexico in April 2024 for what he calls “the big one” — a total eclipse that will pass over North America.

Closer to his home in Northern Ireland, a total eclipse will be visible in Spain in 2026. 

To find out when eclipses can be seen in different countries, Milligan recommended the website timeanddate.com/eclipse.

Despite Tuesday not being the most exciting event, Milligan urged those interested to plan for the next total eclipse.

“People always talk about the northern lights being on their bucket list,” Milligan said. “But a total solar eclipse is the most spectacular sight in nature.”