Oceania

PORT MORESEBY – Three bodies have been recovered and 16 people are missing, feared dead, after a massive landslide wiped out a remote Papua New Guinea village. Villagers had to walk three hours to alert authorities in Morobe Province, on PNG’s northwest coast, after days of continual heavy rains caused the landslide early on...
Read more »

An oil spill in eastern Australia has forced officials to declare a 60 kilometer stretch of the Queensland coast a disaster zone amid warnings that legal action could be taken against the operator of the cargo ship that lost its fuel in stormy seas. Australian authorities originally said about 30 tons of oil were...
Read more »

SYDNEY – A SINGAPORE-OWNED energy delivery company is facing a class action suit over allegations that one of its power lines sparked last week’s deadly Australian bush fires which broke out in the Kinglake area of Victoria state. Residents there are launching legal proceedings against SP AusNet over a fallen power line which is...
Read more »

Australian police have charged a man with arson causing death over one of the country’s deadly bushfires. The 39-year-old was also charged with deliberately lighting a bushfire near Churchill, in eastern Victoria state. The blaze killed at least 21 people. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has described Australia’s deadliest bushfires as mass murder. At least...
Read more »

Australian police have detained two people suspected of deliberately lighting one of the bushfires which savagely swept through southeast Australia killing at least 181 people and leaving 5,000 homeless. “The investigation is in its initial stages. Two people are assisting police with inquiries,” a police spokeswoman told Reuters Thursday. Police would not give any...
Read more »

A government official says the death toll from Australia’s worst wildfire disaster has risen to 108. Authorities counted more victims overnight Monday as they reached further into a huge zone scorched by blazes that ripped across Victoria state at the weekend. At least 700 homes had been destroyed in the fires that in some...
Read more »

Australian emergency crews are stepping up their efforts to tackle wildfires that have ripped through the state of Victoria, killing 25 people. About 30,000 firefighters are battling nine major fires, and the authorities say they expect more fatalities. Victoria Premier John Brumby said he was considering an offer from the federal government to send...
Read more »

The 38-year-old pilot of a Christmas Eve light plane crash in Northern New south Wales is recovering in hospital. The wreckage of the single-engine Cessna was found on Christmas Day, upside down in trees north-west of Merriwa in the Great Dividing Range. The plane’s pilot, Sydney auctioneer Scott Kennedy-Green, was winched to safety but...
Read more »

A pilot who survived a light plane crash on Christmas eve is “devastated” that his brother-in-law died in the accident, family say. Matthew Green, 32, a NSW builder, was killed when the plane in which he was a passenger crashed into the side of a steep ravine in rugged bushland in the NSW Upper...
Read more »

A trip to see Santa saved a mother and baby who would otherwise have been home when two training flights collided, sending a plane crashing into the family’s new Sydney house, killing two female pilots.
Read more »