Environment

Idukki, Aug 12 (PTI) The death toll in the landslide at Pettimudi near Munnar in the high-range Idukki district has gone up to 55 with three more bodies being recovered from the debris on Wednesday, officials said.

Operations led by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are continuing in the area even on the sixth day today to trace 15 more missing people.

"Till now, we have recovered 55 bodies.Earlier we rescued 12 people.Now 15 people are missing.

New Delhi, Aug 11 (PTI) Hindon, a tributary of Ganga, is one of the polluted river stretches and no meaningful action has been being taken to clean it, the National Green Tribunal said Tuesday while directing the UP chief secretary to ensure coordination for rejuvenation of the waterbody.

The green panel said instead of shifting of blame from one department to another, steps should be taken for the restoration of water quality of Hindon.

Guwahati, Aug 10 (PTI) The second attempt to shut Oil India's damaged well at Baghjan in Assam, which has been spewing gas uncontrollably for 76 days, failed on Monday when the iron cable to lift the lid snapped, the PSU said.

This was the second attempt in ten days.

The company said in a statement that when the blow out preventer (BOP) stack alignment was underway to insert the studs one of the two bull lines connected with the Athey Wagon, the equipment for fighting oil field fire which was lifting it, came out from the socket due to excessive heat.

New Delhi, Aug 10 (PTI) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday stepped up his attack on the Centre over the draft environment impact assessment (EIA), saying it must be withdrawn to stop "environmental destruction".

Gandhi alleged that the aim of EIA 2020 draft was clear -- "loot of the nation".

05 Aug 2020; MEMO: Saudi Arabia has constructed a facility for extracting uranium “yellowcake” from ore with help from China, Western officials revealed to the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

New Delhi, Aug 2 (PTI) The National Green Tribunal has directed UP Jal Nigam to expeditiously complete the work of sewer connectivity to households at Narora town in Bulandshahr district to ensure that no untreated water is discharged into the Ganga.

The green panel slammed the Jal Nigam over non-functional sewage treatment plant at Narora and discharge of untreated sewage in a pond adjacent to the river.

02 Aug 2020; MEMO: Iranian teams have cleaned up an oil slick near field in the northern region of the Gulf that had extended over a six-square-km (2.3 square mile) area, an Iranian maritime official said on Saturday according to a report by Reuters.

The cause of the spill, which occurred on Wednesday, was being investigated, the director general of ports and maritime in Iran’s Bushehr Province, Siavash Arjomandzadeh, told the official IRNA news agency.

02 Aug 2020; MEMO: The United Arab Emirates has begun start-up operations in the initial unit of its first nuclear power plant, Reuters reported the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) as saying on Saturday.

PARIS, Aug 1 (NNN-XINHUA) – French weather agency, Meteo France, yesterday put 29 regions, including Ile-de-France — the great Paris region, under orange alert on heatwave till this morning.

“A very intense heat peak is currently affecting the country…Temperatures broke records yesterday notably in the south-west with up to 41.9 degrees Celsius in Socoa,” the national meteorological service said.

“Today, temperatures have cooled significantly on the Atlantic coast, but will reach very high values over most of the country,” it added.

New Delhi, Jul 29 (PTI) The Supreme Court Wednesday allowed filing of a fresh plea challenging the June 17 environmental clearance (EC) granted to the ambitious Central Vista project, covering 3-km stretch from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate in Lutyens' Delhi, for constructing a new Parliament House and other government buildings.

A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheswari and Sanjiv Khanna allowed senior advocate Shyam Divan to file within a week a fresh plea challenging the EC by the Central Vista Committee' to the project.