Evacuations and Evacuees

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      Volcano Erupts Near Fishing Town in Iceland

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      The latest eruption, the sixth since December, is part of increased volcanic activity that began in 2021.A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted on Thursday, spewing ashes and lava, the sixth such eruption since December, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office.The flare-up of the volcano, part of the Svartsengi volcanic system on the Reykjanes Peninsula, marks a continuation of intense geological activity in a region where eight volcanic blasts have been recorded since 2021, several of which occurred this year. Before 2021, the volcanoes on the Reykjanes Peninsula had been dormant for about 800 years.The Blue Lagoon, a geothermal spa and a popular tourist destination near the site of the eruption, announced that it had evacuated its guests and that it would be closed on Friday as a “precautionary measure.” Grindavik, a nearby fishing town of nearly 4,000 people, has been largely empty of its residents since January, after volcanic activity started threatening the area.The eruption occurred in a part of a newly active volcanic zone in Iceland that had been dormant for eight centuries before activity that started last December, with its most recent eruption starting in May.Scientists said they expected the zone to continue producing magma and generating eruptions every few months for years, possibly decades.“With every eruption, we see new unforeseen events,” said Matthew J. Roberts, the managing director of the Icelandic Meteorological Office, which tracks volcanic activity in addition to weather patterns.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Says It Killed Hezbollah Commander in Airstrike Near Beirut

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      The strike was in retaliation for a deadly rocket attack this weekend in the Golan Heights. At least three civilians were killed and 74 others wounded on Tuesday, Lebanese officials said.Israel launched a deadly strike in a densely populated Beirut suburb on Tuesday in retaliation for a rocket attack in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights that it blamed Hezbollah for and that killed 12 children and teenagers on a soccer field.The target of the Israeli strike in a southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital was Fuad Shukr, a senior official who serves as a close adviser to Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, according to three Israeli security officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.The Israel Defense Forces later said in a statement that its fighter jets had “eliminated” Mr. Shukr, but there was no confirmation from Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed group, and the claim could not be independently verified.Hezbollah has denied carrying out the attack in the Golan Heights on Saturday. The latest strikes were likely to fuel concerns that Israel’s long-running conflict with the group could escalate into a full-blown war even as Israel wages a military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip after that group led a deadly assault in Israel on Oct. 7.The attack on Tuesday is believed to be the first time since the war with Hamas began that Israel has targeted Hezbollah in Beirut. In January, an Israeli airstrike in a Beirut suburb killed Saleh al-Arouri, a senior leader of Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.The strike on Tuesday killed at least three other people — a woman and two children — and wounded at least 74 others, five critically, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health. Officials were still searching the rubble for other victims, the ministry said. More

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      New Israeli Evacuation Order in Gaza Displaces Palestinians Again

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      The order affected part of southern Gaza, while farther north, the Israeli military struck the grounds of a school it said was being used by Hamas, killing more than 30 people, Gaza officials said.The Israeli army ordered the evacuation of several neighborhoods in southern Gaza on Saturday, the latest in a series of such directives recently that have forced tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians to relocate yet again.The decision affects an area around the city of Khan Younis that Israel had previously designated a “humanitarian zone” for Palestinian civilians, who are weary from nearly a year of unrelenting war and a daily struggle to avoid disease and find enough food and clean water to survive.“People aren’t being regarded as people,” said Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, the main United Nations agency providing aid to Palestinians in Gaza. “They’re being treated as pinballs and chess pieces.”The Israeli military said its recent evacuations and operations in Khan Younis have targeted a renewed Hamas insurgency and accused Hamas of installing weapons infrastructure in the area under the latest evacuation order on Saturday.Over the past week, amid new evacuation orders, more than 190,000 people have fled the places where they were sheltering in southern and central Gaza, the United Nations said on Friday.Dozens of people have been killed in fighting in the area, according to both Israel and Palestinian health officials. The Israeli military said on Friday that its forces had killed more than 100 militants in Khan Younis in recent days, while Palestinian health officials have said that at least some casualties arriving at local hospitals with severe blast wounds have been women and children.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Flash Flooding Leads to Evacuations and Rescues in Central Vermont

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      The downpour took place exactly a year after a storm caused devastating flooding in some of the same towns.Heavy rain late Wednesday and early Thursday caused flash flooding and forced dozens of overnight rescues and evacuations in central Vermont, affecting some of the same towns that were devastated by record rain and flooding a year ago.One death in the state is believed to have been caused by the extreme weather, Jennifer Morrison, the state’s commissioner of public safety, said at a news conference Thursday morning, though she added that the cause had not been confirmed. The death occurred when a vehicle was swept into floodwater in Peacham, east of Montpelier, she said.The rainfall, attributed to the passing remnants of Tropical Storm Beryl, totaled as much as 5 or 6 inches in some locations, and was expected to continue on Thursday. The National Weather Service in Burlington predicted “excessive rainfall risk” through 8 a.m. Friday in and around Burlington, Middlebury, Stowe and Montpelier, the state capital, where floodwaters inundated the downtown area on July 10, 2023.A flood watch was in effect Thursday morning for much of Vermont and northern New York. Two rivers — including the Winooski, downstream from Waterbury — had yet to crest, officials said.State officials at the news conference said that three bridges had been destroyed by floodwaters and three others damaged, in locations including Norton, Charleston, Morristown and Barnet. The officials stressed that the situation remained dangerous, and urged residents to stay away from rivers, where flood-borne debris continued to pose hazards.Among the places hardest hit on Thursday was Barre, a city of 8,500 next to Montpelier that was devastated by the two-day storm last summer. Local media outlets reported on Thursday morning that Barre’s Main Street was again underwater.More than a dozen swift-water rescue teams, including one from New Hampshire and another from Connecticut, made 118 rescues from Wednesday into Thursday, officials said. Rescues were continuing in Lyndonville, northeast of Montpelier.Mental health counselors were deployed in some communities on Thursday morning to assist residents experiencing trauma, officials said.“I know last night’s flooding — in many of the very same communities impacted on the same day last year — is devastating for these families, business owners and community members,” Gov. Phil Scott wrote on his Facebook page Thursday morning. “My team, emergency responders and local leaders are working around the clock to help ensure public safety, and we will act as quickly as possible in recovery.” More

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      Neverland Ranch Threatened by ‘Lake Fire’ in California

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      The fire erupted on Friday near Zaca Lake, northeast of Los Olivos, Calif. As of Sunday, it had burned more than 16,000 acres and was zero percent contained.A wildfire that erupted in the mountains of Santa Barbara County in Southern California has burned more than 16,000 acres, prompting an evacuation order and threatening ranches, including Michael Jackson’s former Neverland Ranch, the authorities said.The fire, called the Lake Fire, broke out shortly before 4 p.m. on Friday near Zaca Lake, just northeast of Los Olivos, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.The cause of the fire, which was zero percent contained as of Sunday, remained under investigation.The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office issued an evacuation order for an area near the Los Padres National Forest that includes the property once known as Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, a 2,700-acre property in Los Olivos, about 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles.About 100 residents were affected by the evacuation order, said Kenichi Haskett, a public information officer for Cal Fire. No structural damage, injuries or fatalities have been reported so far.Winds were blowing the blaze southeast. Neverland Ranch and other ranches were in immediate danger on Sunday, Mr. Haskett said.Mr. Jackson bought the ranch for about $17 million in 1988 and transformed it into a private entertainment complex, complete with a zoo, a train and an amusement park that included a Ferris wheel and a 50-seat theater.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hurricane Beryl Batters Jamaica After Pummeling 2 Other Islands

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      The island confirmed its first death amid a surge of water, damaging winds and flooding. The storm is barreling toward the Cayman Islands and the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.Jamaica was hammered by a surge of water, damaging winds and flooding rainfall on Wednesday as Hurricane Beryl delivered a glancing blow when it passed just south of the coast, claiming at least one life on the island. The effects of the storm, a Category 4, struck Jamaica just days after it swept through the eastern Caribbean, killing at least seven other people.Virtually every building on the islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique in Grenada lay in ruins after the storm made landfall there earlier this week, leaving hospitals and marinas destroyed, rooftops torn away and tree trunks snapped like matchsticks across the drenched earth.“We have to rebuild from the ground up,” said Dickon Mitchell, prime minister of Grenada.Ahead of the hurricane, Jamaica closed its airports and issued an evacuation order for low-lying and flood-prone areas. The storm was the strongest to approach the island in over a decade. The last time a major hurricane passed within 70 miles of Jamaica was in 2007, and it has been even longer since one made landfall.Workers boarding up an office building on Wednesday in Kingston, Jamaica.Marco Bello/ReutersThe first confirmed death in Jamaica because of the storm came when a woman was killed as a tree fell on her house in the western parish of Hanover, the head of the country’s disaster agency, Richard Thompson, said.A rescue team was also searching for a 20-year-old man who had been swept away in a gully in Kingston after trying to retrieve a ball that he and friends had been playing with, according to a senior police officer, Michael Phipps.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      13,000 Are Ordered to Evacuate as Wildfire Spreads in Northern California

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      A wildfire that began in Butte County, Calif., on Tuesday morning has burned more than 3,000 acres and threatened residents of the city of Oroville.The authorities in Northern California ordered about 13,000 people in Butte County to evacuate on Tuesday night as a wildfire spread, burning more than 3,000 acres as of Wednesday morning.California’s firefighting agency, Cal Fire, said that the fire began on Tuesday morning and that its cause was under investigation. It was not clear how many structures had been damaged by the blaze, called the Thompson fire, but photos showed several homes and vehicles engulfed in flames. No fatalities had been reported as of Wednesday morning.Sheriff Kory Honea of Butte County said at a news conference on Tuesday night that about 13,000 people had been ordered to evacuate. Many of the evacuation orders affected the city of Oroville, Calif., which is about 68 miles north of Sacramento and has a population of about 20,000 people.Track Wildfires in the U.S.See where wildfires are currently burning.The fire risk in Northern California has been made worse this week by low humidity and gusty winds, which can cause fires to rapidly spread. Red flag fire warnings, meaning that the risk for wildfires is heightened by weather conditions, were in place in more than a dozen counties on Tuesday and Wednesday.There is also a dangerous heat wave in Northern California, with temperatures on Wednesday expected to reach 110 and higher in cities including Sacramento, Chico and Redding. The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning that affects most of Northern California, including Oroville.Butte County was the site of the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in the state’s history. The Camp fire in 2018 killed at least 85 people and destroyed more than 90 percent of the homes in Paradise, a small town about 20 miles north of Oroville.Last week, residents of the nearby town of Palermo were ordered to evacuate because of the Apache fire, which burned 691 acres and has been contained. More

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      F.B.I. Offers Reward for Information About New Mexico Wildfires

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      The agency said it was offering up to $10,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those “responsible for starting the fires.”The Federal Bureau of Investigation is offering an award for information about two wildfires in southern New Mexico that left two people dead, prompted the evacuation of thousands and scorched more than 24,000 acres.The agency is offering up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the “person or persons responsible for starting the fires” near the village of Ruidoso, N.M, the agency said in a statement.The F.B.I. asked for the public’s help in identifying what sparked the blazes.Margot Cravens, a spokeswoman for the F.B.I.’s field office in Albuquerque, declined to comment on Sunday evening but confirmed that the agency was assisting with the investigation.The South Fork and Salt fires began on June 17 amid sweltering temperatures and were still burning on Sunday evening. Extreme temperatures, low humidity and heavy rain in the area have complicated efforts to extinguish the fires, which are burning in the Mescalero Apache tribal area, on U.S. Forest Service land and in areas around Ruidoso.The South Fork fire, the larger of the two wildfires, has burned more than 17,000 acres and was only 31 percent contained on Sunday, according to New Mexico Fire Information, a website run by federal and state agencies.The Salt fire has burned more than 7,000 acres of tribal land in mostly inaccessible mountain terrain and remains only 7 percent contained, the authorities said.The two people who died were found on Tuesday in or near Ruidoso, according to the New Mexico State Police. One of them, a 60-year-old man, was found with burns on the side of a road near a motel, the police said. The other victim was found in the driver seat of a burned vehicle on a road.About 1,400 structures have been destroyed, and about 8,000 people from Ruidoso and the surrounding areas were forced to evacuate, the authorities said.Ruidoso announced it would be lifting evacuation orders for full-time residents, permitting them to return beginning 8 a.m. Monday. Some homes may be without gas, water and electricity, and air quality may be poor because of smoke and ash, according to a statement on the village’s website. Residents are being advised to bring a week’s worth of groceries and water.Some areas will remain off-limits because they are considered crime scenes and are “undergoing recovery efforts,” the statement said.Reporting was contributed by More