Four rare mountain gorillas killed by lightning
Kampala: Four endangered mountain gorillas, including three adult females, have been killed by an apparent lightning strike in a Ugandan national park, a conservation group has said. A post-mortem examination has been performed on the four, including a male infant, who died on February 3 in Mgahinga National Park in southwest Uganda.
“Based on the gross lesions from the post-mortem… the tentative cause of death for all four individuals is likely to be electrocution by lightning,” the Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration (GVTC) said in a statement Saturday, although laboratory confirmation will take two to three weeks.
The four were members of a group of 17 known as the Hirwa family which had crossed into the Mgahinga National Park in August last year from Volcanoes National Park in neighbouring Rwanda.
“This was extremely sad,” GVTC executive secretary Andrew Seguya told the BBC. “The potential of the three females for their contribution to the population was immense.”
The other 13 members of the group had been found. In 2008, there were estimated to be only 680 of the great apes left but thanks to conservation efforts and anti-poaching patrols, their population has grown to more than 1,000. Due to these efforts, in 2018 the mountain gorilla, a subspecies of the eastern gorilla, was moved from “critically endangered” to “endangered” on the IUCN’s “Red List” of threatened species.
Covering the northern slopes of three volcanoes, Mgahinga National Park is part of the Virunga massif shared with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. (AFP)
British Airways records fastest NY-London flight at 1290km/hr
London: As the worst storm in seven years set its eyes on the UK and Europe, a British Airways (BA) flight utilised the strong tail winds and reached Heathrow airport from New York in a record four hours and 56 minutes — at a subsonic speed of over 1,290 km per hour.
According to the data available with online flight tracker service Flightradar24, a British Airways Boeing 747 that departed from the JFK Airport on Saturday reached Heathrow shortly after 11.20 p.m.
Another Virgin Atlantic Airbus A350 flight landed at Heathrow moments later, only a minute less than the time the BA flight took, and three minutes quicker than another Virgin plane which arrived at 5.12 a.m. on Sunday, reports The Independent.
Both BA and Virgin broke the previous New York to London record held by Norwegian airlines, which reached London Gatwick from JFK Airport in 5 hours 13 minutes in January 2018.
However, flights going towards the US faced heavy head winds, resulting in more than two and a half hours longer flight to the US East Coast.
Forecasters have warned the impacts of Ciara “will be felt across the whole of the UK” when it reaches England and Wales on Monday, with a month’s worth of rain expected to fall in one day, reports the Metro newspaper.
The UK Met Office said there is a risk of danger to life from towering waves, flying debris and treacherous road conditions. (IANS)