The attack occurred in Kuchi village, Munya district, in Niger state, beginning at about 5:30 p.m. on Friday and lasting until 4:00 a.m. Saturday, according to district official Aminu Abdulhamid Najume.

Niger state, which borders Nigeria’s capital Abuja, has experienced repeated kidnappings for ransom by armed groups, including mass abductions, in recent years.

Najume reported that about 300 gunmen arrived on motorbikes and stayed for several hours, making themselves at home before leaving with the abductees. “They made a fire to curb the cold because it was raining throughout that day,” Najume said. “They cooked and made tea; they made Indomie (instant noodles) and spaghetti.”

Some of those killed were members of a local vigilante group who confronted the attackers but were overpowered. Najume added that security forces had not yet started rescue operations. “The police visited Kuchi yesterday [Sunday] and left, nothing else.”

“This is not the first or second time Kuchi village has been attacked. This is the fifth time,” Najume said, noting that the area frequently suffers from kidnappings for ransom. The kidnappers have not yet made any demands regarding the latest abduction, he said.

Amnesty International said in a post on social media platform X on Sunday that it was “deeply concerned by the abduction,” criticizing Nigerian authorities for leaving “rural communities at the mercy of gunmen.”

“Since 2021, gunmen have been consistently attacking Kuchi village and raping women and girls in their matrimonial homes,” the agency stated.

“The invasion of the village by the gunmen is yet another indication of the Nigerian authorities’ utter failure to protect lives,” Amnesty added.

Nigeria’s security forces have struggled for years to control insurgent groups in the north of the country.

The Kuchi abduction comes two months after 21 people, including a newlywed, were killed when gunmen described locally as ‘bandits’ stormed a market in Rafi, another affected district in Niger.

At least 137 schoolchildren were kidnapped earlier in March in Niger’s neighboring Kaduna state but were later released after the kidnappers made an initial demand of 1 billion naira (over $675,000) and threatened to kill them all if their demands were not met.

Mykola first thought it was a dream. The windows of his home blown out. The whistle of a shell landing. An explosion.

But as the 10-year-old younger son of Larisa and Mykola Glushko staggered in the dark, toward his mother’s room, he realized he was awake, and that his mother lay before him, crushed beneath a collapsed concrete baton.

“Something fell,” he recalled. “Mom was saying, ‘Kolya, Kolya.’ I shouted, ‘Mom, I’m alive.’”

He said he frantically scraped the dust from his face and eyes. “I saw my Mom crushed down by the ceiling. I tried to pull it away, but I couldn’t. Mom was moaning and shaking her legs. And I was shouting, ‘Mother, mother, it’s just a dream, a horrible dream.’” Mykola had a similar nightmare days earlier, and felt it might be recurring. “Then there was darkness.”

His mother died in front of him. His father was killed by the initial explosion. Hours earlier, the family had a barbecue, and Mykola senior drank one beer too many and talked passionately about enlisting. In the pitch black, his son clambered outside, the front of their comfortable family home beyond recognition, its gates torn clean away.

Mykola said: “I was screaming, ‘God, why did you do this to me?’ I was running in underwear asking for help.”

For Mykola, the act of survival stretches what any 10-year-old could be expected to bear. His loss, part of a patina of suffering across Ukraine’s two years of war, where Russian missiles that slammed inexplicably into civilian targets, claim lives that do not make the headlines, and unravel childhoods in ways that will echo for decades in Ukraine.

Mykola was given a shot of medicine to calm him in hospital, and his brother came to explain what had happened. “He told me now it’s only me and him left. He repeated it four times. I was trying to calm myself down, but also hated myself. Because I couldn’t save my mom.”

He has spoken with his new guardian, his godmother, who lives nearby, and is clear he will stay in the military town of Pokrovsk to tend their graves. “I will visit them,” he said. “(I will) apologize for not able to save them. Will apologize to my father that I couldn’t save my mom, his wife.”

He said his dream now is different, to ask his parents important questions. “What should I do now? How do I live? Another dream is to take revenge on the one who launched the missile.”

Across the eastern frontline, notably around Pokrovsk, the pace of Russia’s advance appears to quicken, and with it the unspeakable loss of families like Mykola’s. At the ruins of his home, neighbors said there is no military target nearby. Workers sifted through the dust. The smell of the decaying family dog lingered. On a nearby radio, Russians are so close their stations were audible, explaining to their audience how the West refuses to give Ukraine modern equipment and so “the ordinary boys from Ukrainian armed forces will be the ones to suck it up.”

A short drive away, at a stabilization point in an eastern town, the life-changing hideousness of even light injuries wasapparent. Sunset means frontline units can begin the task of evacuating their wounded, safe from the Russian attack drones that haunt daylight hours.

The medical point waited in complete darkness, and a car raced out from the night. Two wounded soldiers from Klishchiivka – a town where Moscow has recently claimed success, partially owing to Ukraine having to relocate forces from there to defend against the onslaught in Kharkiv region – emerged from the car. One has his head fully bandaged up and talked, his arms outstretched, as groped his way forward. The other was laid flat on a gurney.

They were quickly tended to. Clothes were gently cut away. One had damage to his eyes, swollen shut, yet appearedotherwise less badly hurt. The other had shrapnel in his leg, flesh injuries to his arm, and was peppered with shrapnel on his back. His face was covered with dirt and his eyes also struggled to open.

A mortar landed about four feet (1.2 meters) from their dugout. It is a matter of luck and a few feet that they are still physically intact. The staff swiftly tried to clean their eyes.

“When I open the eye like this, do you see the light?” a doctor asked. “What about people?” The patient could only see light. A nurse noticed damage to his right hand. They examined his back and saw a morass of tiny wounds. Suddenly, the patient worsened. “Something on my side,” he screamed.

It is possible the force of the blast caused internal injuries. The doctors moved to quickly intervene. Anaesthetic was injected into his lung, and a tube inserted. “Cough, and it will get better,” a doctor told the patient.

Around the pair, there were four empty beds. A year ago, one doctor, Ivan, told us, they could have 250 patients a day, when the Russian assault on Bakhmut was at its peak. Yet the drop in patients does not herald an improvement in Ukraine’s war. The 93rd mechanized brigade lacks infantry, and finds it hard to resupply and position them on the frontline because of the threat of Russian drones, an official told us, and so this stabilization unit lacks patients. It is a chilling reminder of the manpower shortage Kyiv is dealing with after two years of war.

The patients were led to a waiting ambulance, which left in the pitch black, its headlights off. Russia has targeted medical facilities before.

Eighteen people, including a 12-year-old girl, are among those killed in a Russian strike that hit a large store in Kharkiv at the weekend, regional officials have said, making it the deadliest attack Ukraine has endured in several weeks.

Five people remain missing, Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the Kharkiv region military administration, said Monday. He said that 48 people were injured in the strike that hit the Epicenter hypermarket shopping center building while nearly 200 people were inside.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city, which sits near its border with Russia, has seen a spate of Russian attacks in recent weeks.

Security camera footage of the moment of the strike shows the building shake on impact, with the whole site immediately engulfed in thick smoke and flames. Police and witnesses described at least two explosions taking place.

Oleksandr Lutsenko, director of the Epicenter shopping center, said he was in his office on the second floor at the time of the two explosions.

“The employees were also leaving. Everyone was groping, and people were holding each other. We could hear the ceiling falling.”

Once outside, he saw the hypermarket was on fire. “There was black smoke everywhere, and it was hard to breathe. Some people were jumping out of the windows,” Lutsenko added.

Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said the hours following the strike were “hellish” and thanked everyone who helped to put out the fires. Photographs from inside the store following the attack show the building in complete ruin, with burnt stock and collapsed walls.

Ukrainian Catholic University identified the killed 12-year-old as Maria Myronenko, saying in a Facebook post that she had died in the strike alongside her mother, Iryna, who was a student at the institute. Her father had also been injured and was being treated in hospital, it said.

Serhii Bolvinov, Chief of the Investigative Department of the Kharkiv Regional Police, said the family had been shopping when the two bombs hit. Maria’s elder sister, Nadiya, 20, was not with them at the time, and learned of the deaths only after finding her father in hospital.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the strike as a “brutal attack,” saying that “Russia is run by men who want to make it a norm – burning lives, destroying cities and villages, dividing people, and erasing national borders through war.”

Zelensky, who was in Spain for an official visit on Monday, urged Ukraine’s allies to provide it with more air defenses.

Meeting with Zelensky in Madrid, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced on Monday a new $1.08 billion weapons deal for Ukraine that “aims to reinforce air defense systems” and protect Ukrainian citizens and infrastructure from Russia’s attacks.

“We are sending Patriot missiles,” Sanchez said of the American-built air-defense system. “Zelensky asks for the platforms to launch those, asking how many we can give. We are sending another batch of Leopard tanks and above all, munitions that the [Ukrainian] troops need.”

Zelensky was due to visit Spain earlier this month but postponed the trip due to Russia’s offensive around Kharkiv and other parts of Ukraine. That offensive appears to continue, with Kharkiv enduring intense attacks daily.

The United States announced on Friday that it’s sending $275 million in military assistance to Ukraine as part of “efforts to help Ukraine repel Russia’s assault near Kharkiv,” according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The top US diplomat said the new tranche of assistance “contains urgently needed capabilities” for Ukrainian troops as they fight to hold back Russia’s advances toward the key northeastern city.

Ukraine tamps down French trainer comments

News of the new military assistance came as Ukraine’s Defense Ministry tamped down expectations that French military trainers could soon be in Ukraine after online comments from army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi appeared to suggest their arrival in country was a done deal.

“I welcome the initiative of France to send instructors to Ukraine to train Ukrainian military personnel,” Syrskyi had written on Telegram following a video conference between himself and the two countries’ defense ministers. “I have already signed the documents that will allow the first French instructors to visit our training centres and get acquainted with the infrastructure and personnel.”

Syrskyi’s statement gave no possible timeline, but seemed to indicate France was ready to make what would be a very significant shift in NATO countries’ involvement in Ukraine’s war with Russia.

Further heightening that sense, Syrskyi went on to write, “I believe that France’s determination will encourage other partners to join this ambitious project. I thanked the minister for the friendly support of the French people and military and economic assistance to Ukraine to repel Russian military aggression.”

“We have ongoing discussions with France and other countries on this issue and have started internal paperwork to move forward when the decision is taken,” the short statement concluded.

“As with all the projects discussed at the conference, we are continuing to work with the Ukrainians to understand their exact needs,” the statement said.

At the Paris conference, French President Emmanuel Macron had floated the idea that sending military trainers to Ukraine was one way Kyiv’s western allies could deploy troops in the country.

Additional reporting from Victoria Butenko and Daria Tarasova Markina in Kyiv and Xiaofei Xu in Paris

At least 134 people have been killed in El Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state, since May 10 due to intense fighting, according to a statement from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Sunday.

MSF reported that one of its colleagues, a watchman at the organization’s pharmacy, was killed when shelling hit his house near the city’s main market while he was off duty. “We urge the warring parties to do more to protect civilians, who—like our valued colleague—are among those losing their lives,” the group stated.

Many MSF staff members have lost family members or homes during the shelling. Since the fighting began more than two weeks ago, the group said it has treated 979 people.

The violence in North Darfur has intensified as the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) encircle El Fasher. The fighting also affects thousands of displaced people who have fled to El Fasher from the other four Darfur states now controlled by the RSF.

According to UNICEF, at least 500,000 people sheltering in the city have been displaced by violence elsewhere in Sudan. Food, medicine, and other vital supplies are scarce, and food assistance deliveries in Darfur are limited. The World Food Program reports that 1.7 million people in the region are experiencing emergency levels of hunger.

A report from the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab on May 15 confirmed “significant conflict-related damage in the eastern and southeastern neighborhoods of El Fasher city between 10 – 14 May.” The report is consistent with accounts that the RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) “have engaged in expanded and repeated ground fighting and bombardment in” the city, the Yale report added.

Civil war in Sudan between the SAF and RSF broke out in April 2023. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, since the war’s outbreak more than 8.8 million people have fled their homes and 24.8 million people are in need of assistance.

Last week at the UN Security Council, the United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Wairimu Nderitu warned, “The situation today bears all the marks of risk of genocide, with strong allegations that this crime has already been committed.”

“The risk of genocide exists in Sudan.  It is real and it is growing every single day,” she went on to say.

Dozens of people were killed on Sunday after a fire broke out following an Israeli airstrike on a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah, Gaza.

At least 45 people were killed and more than 200 others injured in the strike, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and Palestinian medics. No hospital in Rafah had the capacity to take the number of casualties, the ministry said.

“Several civilians are still trapped inside the camp, which was attacked without warning,” a Palestinian man filming the fire said. “This was declared a safe zone.”

The attack came after Hamas launched rockets at Tel Aviv on Sunday for the first time in months. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that eight rockets were fired from the Rafah area, and that “a number of projectiles” had been intercepted. The IDF said it destroyed the rocket launchers used by Hamas shortly after the strikes.

The Israeli military said in a Monday statement that it struck “a compound in Rafah in which significant Hamas terrorists were operating,” and said it is aware of reports of civilian harm following the strike and fire.

“We are aware of the claim that… a number of uninvolved people were injured,” Avichay Adraee, head of the Arab media division of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, said on X. “The circumstances of the accident are being investigated.”

The IDF’s Chief Prosecutor Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi said the details of the Rafah strike are still under review, and that the IDF is “committed to seeing it through to conclusion.”

It was among the deadliest strikes by the Israeli military on Gaza’s southernmost city since Israel began its operation there on May 7. It also came just days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ top court, ordered Israel to “immediately halt” its military operation in Rafah, and any other action in the city, “which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

More than 36,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military operation there, according to the Ministry of Health in the enclave, which started after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages, according to Israeli authorities.

Footage of the aftermath shared on social media showed chaotic scenes.

In one video, the lifeless body of a man was seen being dragged by the legs out of the flames. “He’s dead, he’s dead,” a rescuer says before moving on to find others. In another video, a man wept as he held up the headless body of a toddler for the camera. Women shrieked in grief as children peered into the fire. A man with a bloodied face stood in apparent shock, examining his wounds with one hand, as he held an infant with blood-stained clothes in the other arm. One of the bodies pulled out of the fire was charred-stiff.

By Monday morning, the camp was in ruins with small fires still burning. Men and boys gathered around, rummaging through the burned and smoking wreckage for food and their belongings as drones hovered above. One of the structures still standing was a sign that read: “Kuwait peace camp 1.”

Mohammad Abu Al Subeh, a displaced Palestinian man who survived the strike, said as he was lying in bed in the evening when he saw “rockets fired down at us.”

Hamas called the attack “a horrific war crime” and “terrible massacre.”

International outrage

International condemnation was swift, with UN agencies, aid groups and governments calling on Israel to respect the ICJ ruling and halt its Rafah operation.

“Despite the ICJ binding ruling, Israel struck Rafah and Hamas fired rockets to Israel,” the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, wrote Monday on X.  On Monday, in a meeting with Arab leaders to discuss Gaza and the Middle, Borrell said that “what we have seen in the immediate hours is that Israel continues the military action that it has been asked to stop.”

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was “horrified by this deadly event, which shows once again that nowhere is safe.” The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said “Gaza is hell on earth,” referring to the Rafah attack.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “outraged” and called for an “immediate ceasefire.”

Critics have pushed back on Israel’s claims. Already worried about an intensifying war right on its border with Gaza, Egypt on Monday condemned Israel’s strike on Rafah, calling on the Jewish state to implement the ICJ ruling of “halting military operations” in Rafah and to “comply with its responsibilities as an occupying power”.

A mediator in the war, Egypt is set to host another round of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas on Tuesday. Qatar, another key mediator, said Israel’s strike could “hinder” ongoing negotiations, and called the attack a “serious violation of international law.”

Over a million Palestinians had been sheltering in Rafah before Israel began its operations there, having fled there from other areas of Gaza after Israel began its military campaign in the territory.

Israel has said it had ordered civilians to leave some areas of Rafah, but many remain there, sheltering in what Israel designated as “safe zones.”

More than 800,000 people have fled Rafah since May 6, according to UN figures.

Israel has vowed to press on with its Rafah operation despite international outrage and a US warning not to proceed. In response to the ICJ ruling last week, Israel said it “has not and will not conduct military actions in the Rafah area which may inflict on the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

At least seven people, including a child, have died in southern India as Tropical Cyclone Remal lashed the area with torrential rain and heavy winds.

More than 1 million people in India and Bangladesh were evacuated Sunday as the cyclone made landfall near the border of between the two countries. The cyclone has continued to move inland across eastern India, toppling trees, turning roads into rivers and causing wide-scale damage.

The Indian Metereological Department said it expected the cyclone to “gradually weaken” on Monday.

Authorities said that volunteers and army staff were mobilized to assist with clean-up efforts, and distribute food and water to displaced families.

Remal made landfall roughly 80 kilometers (50 miles) southeast of the Indian city of Kolkata, packing gusts of up to 135 kilometers per hour (84 miles per hour), and is moving northwards across Bangladesh and its adjoining West Bengal coasts, the Indian Meteorological Department said.

The maritime ports of Mongla and Payra in Bangladesh put up the Great Danger Signal 10 — the highest alert signal — on Sunday, and all fishing and boating vessels were advised to remain in shelter by the Bangladesh Meteorological Department.

About 2 million people live in storm-affected areas in Bangladesh, according to non-profit BRAC.

At least half a million of these people “live in houses made of materials such as clay, wood, plastic sheets, straw or tin,” said Dr. Md Liakath Ali, a disaster expert at BRAC.

The country is one of the world’s most vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis, studies show.

Millions are without power as authorities shut down electricity supply to many areas in advance to avoid accidents, according to Ali. Fallen trees and broken lines disrupted supply, he said.

An especially vulnerable group are the stateless Rohingya communities who fled persecution in nearby Myanmar during a military crackdown in 2017. They are already living in the world’s largest refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, which is at risk of landslides and floods, owing to the flimsy structure of their shelters. Many live in bamboo and tarpaulin shelters perched on hilly slopes that are vulnerable to strong winds, rain, and landslides.

Video taken by a BRAC’s volunteer early Monday in Mongla showed a woman struggling to walk through the floodwaters as gusts of wind nearly toppled her over.

In India, video from the country’s National Disaster Response Force showed workers removing broken trees in the state of West Bengal as heavy rain lashed down on them. The Coast Guard was seen closely monitoring Remal’s landfall, with ships and hovercraft on standby to respond to any challenges, it said.

Hundreds of flights were also impacted following the closure on Sunday of the main international airport in the Indian city of Kolkata, West Bengal state’s capital. Air traffic in and out of the airport resumed on Monday, but disruptions continued with dozens of flights delayed, according to the airport’s official website.

Tropical Cyclone Remal has been churning across the Bay of Bengal since late last week  prompting authorities to prepare ahead of its arrival.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said he had reviewed disaster management and preparation efforts. “I pray for everyone’s safety and wellbeing,” Modi wrote on X.

Cyclones, also known as typhoons and called hurricanes in North America, are enormous heat engines of wind and rain that feed on warm ocean water and moist air. And scientists say the climate crisis is making them more potent.

A study published in 2021 by researchers at the Shenzhen Institute of Meteorological Innovation and the Chinese University of Hong Kong and published in Frontiers in Earth Science found that tropical cyclones in Asia could have double the destructive power by the end of the century, with scientists saying the human-made climate crisis is already making them stronger.

The cyclone comes as parts of Western and Central India continue to bake under severe heat, with temperatures soaring beyond 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) in some cities, causing illness and forcing some schools to close.

Climate scientists have long warned that these extremes of weather will only continue to intensify because of the climate crisis, with millions of people in India vulnerable to the risks associated with it.

The cockroach that emerged from your sink drain and scuttled under the fridge? The nocturnal critter was most likely a German cockroach, and its ancestors were pestering people more than 2,000 years ago in southern Asia, a new study found.

The research, published May 20 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that the insects’ journey from scavenging in ancient Asian civilizations to getting cozy beneath your kitchen floor closely aligns with major historical shifts in global commerce, colonization and war.

German cockroaches, scientifically known as Blattella germanica, are ubiquitous in cities in the United States and around the world. The hardy pests first appeared in scientific records from 250 years ago in Europe, hence the German moniker, but little is known about their origin.

To figure out how cockroaches got there and spread to other parts of the world, first study author Dr. Qian Tang and his collaborators asked scientists and pest control experts around the globe for local specimens. The research team received 281 German cockroach samples from 57 sites in 17 countries and studied their DNA to trace their evolution.

“Our main purpose was to show how a species can travel with humans and how genetics can make up the missing part of historical records,” said Tang, an evolutionary biologist who is now a postdoctoral research associate at Harvard University.

Using genomic data from the samples, Tang was surprised to learn that the modern cockroach’s lineage goes back much further than 18th century Europe. The insect evolved from the wild Asian cockroach, scientifically known as Blattella asahinai, 2,100 years ago, according to his research.

Cockroaches and trade routes

Around that time, Tang and his colleagues speculate, people in what is now India or Myanmar began planting crops in the Asian roach’s natural habitat. The insects adapted — shifting their diets to include human food — and then shifted their territory into human households.

A millennium later, as trade and military activity grew between southern Asia and the Middle East and later Europe, domesticated cockroaches spread westward, probably hitching rides in soldiers’ and travelers’ lunch baskets. The study team’s genetic analysis puts the insects’ first entry into Europe around 270 years ago. That estimate comes close to when famed Swedish geneticist Carl Linnaeus first described them in 1776, about a decade after the Seven Years’ War raged across Asia, Europe and North America. The cockroaches then made it from Europe to the Americas about 120 years ago, the study found.

“Insects are part of the fabric of human culture,” said Dr. Jessica Ware, curator of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, who was not involved in the research. “For the longest time, we’ve kind of known that people are moving around a lot of pest species. And we know that transatlantic trade routes probably were the culprit for the spread of German cockroaches. But to actually see this reflected in the genetic signature of these populations, that was very exciting.”

Humans have been making them at home ever since, she said. “The things that have allowed humans to thrive — indoor plumbing, indoor heating — are things that have also allowed cockroaches to thrive,” Ware said. “By creating sewers underneath our cities, we couldn’t have provided a better buffet.”

Next, Tang wants to sequence the full genomes of his hundreds of specimens to learn how German cockroaches have adapted so successfully to the human environment. “For example, the German cockroach has insecticide resistance that is not detected in many other pests,” he said. “How can they evolve so fast? Is it something that’s already in their genes, but has become revealed because of anthropogenic pressures?”

The insects also demonstrate social behaviors, communicating with one another about where to find food. Tang wants to find out if this ability, too, is a survival trait for which roaches have humans to thank.

Amanda Schupak is a science and health journalist in New York City.

As many as 2,000 people are feared to have been buried by last week’s massive landslide in Papua New Guinea, according to the country’s National Disaster Centre, as rescuers scramble to find any survivors in the remote region.

The landslide occurred in the mountainous Enga region in northern Papua New Guinea on Friday and the latest figure is a sharp rise from earlier estimates.

Soon after the disaster occurred, the United Nations said as many as 100 may have died. That was later revised up to 670, according to estimates from the Chief of Mission for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the country.

But that may now be a major underestimate according to the latest projection from Papua New Guinea’s disaster agency.

“The landslide buried more than 2000 people alive and caused major destruction to buildings, food gardens and caused major impact on the economic lifeline of the country,” Lusete Laso Mana, Acting Director the National Disaster Centre, said in a letter to the UN.

“The situation remains unstable as the landslip continues to shift slowly, posing ongoing danger to both rescue teams and survivors alike,” he added, saying the main highway to the area had been completely blocked by the landslide.

“Following the inspection conducted by the team, it was determined that the damages are extensive and require immediate and collaborative actions from all players.”

The landslide hit the remote village of Kaokalam, about 600 kilometers (372 miles) northwest of the capital Port Moresby, at approximately 3 a.m. local time on Friday, leaving a scar of debris that humanitarian workers said was as big as four football pitches.

More than 150 houses in Yambali village were buried in debris, officials said on Sunday. The area continues to pose an “extreme risk,” officials said, as rocks continue to fall and the ground soil is exposed to constant increased pressure.

Papua New Guinea is home to around 10 million people. Its vast mountainous terrain and lack of roads have made it difficult to access the affected area.

Pierre Rognon, an associate professor from the University of Sydney’s School of Civil Engineering, said it’s “particularly challenging” for rescuers to find survivors after a landslide.

“Landslides can bury collapsed structures and people under dozens of meters of geomaterials,” he said.

“To make things worse, they can move structures and trap people over hundreds of meters. No one can predict exactly where potential survivors may be located and where to start looking for them.”

It’s not clear what caused the landslide, but geology professor Alan Collins from the University of Adelaide said it occurred in a region of “considerable rainfall.”

“Although the landslide does not appear to have been directly triggered by an earthquake, frequent earthquakes caused by plates colliding build steep slopes and high mountains that can become very unstable,” Collins said.

He said rainfall could have altered the minerals making the bedrock, weakening the rock that forms the steep hillsides.

“Vegetation mitigates this as tree roots can stabilise the ground and deforestation can make landslides more prevalent by destroying this biological mesh,” he said.

A pilot and passenger emerged unscathed from a light plane that made a dramatic crash landing in Australia after flying perilously close to houses in suburban Sydney.

Footage from Nine News showed the plane coming dangerously close to trees and buildings as the pilot steered the stricken aircraft towards Bankstown Airport in Sydney’s southwest.

“It was gliding, there was no power,” pilot Jake Swanepoel told Nine News. “We clipped the trees, and we just made it over the hanger.”

Swanepoel managed to land the plane on an airport taxiway, where it skidded to a stop on its belly.

Swanepoel told Nine News that he retracted the landing gear because the plane was so low he thought it might hit the roofs of houses as the aircraft made its nerve-wracking approach.

Ground staff dashed to assist them, but Swanepoel and his partner Karin climbed out of the aircraft unscathed. “We didn’t think we were going to make this landing strip here,” Karin told Nine News.

That would include seeking a report from the pilot, who’s been flying for 29 years, according to Nine News.

“It was scary and nerve-wracking because you were thinking about all these homes… if you don’t make the runway,” Karin said.

When asked how they would celebrate reaching the runway, Swanepoel joked saying “nothing, just be alive.”

Britain’s Conservative Party will introduce mandatory national service for 18-year-olds if it wins the national election on July 4, comprising military or community participation, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Sunday.

Young adults will be able to choose between spending one weekend a month volunteering over the course of a year, or take up one of 30,000 spaces to spend a year in the armed forces, Sunak said.

The announcement followed Labour Party leader Keir Starmer’s comments on Saturday that he was in favour of allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to vote.

Sunak’s Conservatives lag Labour by a wide margin in opinion polls, which have shown little change in fortunes for the prime minister since his surprise election call last Wednesday.

“Britain today faces a future that is more dangerous and more divided. There’s no doubt that our democratic values are under threat. That is why we will introduce a bold new model of national service for 18-year-olds,” Sunak said in a statement.

The Conservative Party said the proposal would be funded by cracking down on tax avoidance and evasion, and by diverting money from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, which existed to reduce regional economic inequality.

Labour politicians derided the announcement.

“The national service we need from our young people is to vote for change on July 4,” said Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester.

Interior minister James Cleverly told broadcasters there would be no criminal sanctions for skipping mandatory service but that people will be compelled to do it, without providing further details.

Asked by the BBC if forcing adults to volunteer was at odds with the Conservative Party’s liberal tradition, Cleverly said: “We force people to do things all the time.”

He cited compulsory education or training for teenagers until the age of 18 as an example.