At least 60 people have died and nearly 100,000 people are unable to return home, days after devastating rains flooded the Indonesian capital of Jakarta.Some 11,000 health workers were deployed across the greater Jakarta area Sunday to spray chemicals and distribute medicine to prevent the spread of diseases such as dengue fever as the city remains under water.Tens of thousands of people remained in temporary shelters, mostly in Western Jakarta Sunday. National weather experts in Indonesia warned that rains were expected to continue in the coming days.Nonstop rainfall last week flooded 268 tracts in Indonesia, 158 in low-lying Jakarta, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on its website. Drainage and levees in the capital are considered inadequate for storms of that scale, Southeast Asian economists say.Tuesday’s rainfall reached 377 millimeters (14.8 inches), a record since 2007, The Jakarta Post online said. The rains touched off landslides, trapped people in houses and prompted tens of thousands to evacuate, local media reports say.Citizens of the city of 11 million want the government to improve flood control work, although much has been done already, said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at market research firm IHS Markit. President Joko Widodo in July suggested building a seawall around Jakarta, much of which is below sea level. 
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It has been described as Australia’s Galapagos Islands and has long been a refuge for some of the country’s most endangered creatures. But devastating wildfires over recent days have undone decades of careful conservation work on Kangaroo Island and have threatened to wipe out some of the island’s unique fauna altogether.Experts working on the island say the fires have killed thousands of koalas and kangaroos, and also have raised questions about whether any members of a mouse-like marsupial species that carries its young in a pouch have survived. Similarly, it remains unclear how many from a unique flock of glossy black-cockatoos got away from the flames and whether they have a future on an island where much of their habitat has gone up in smoke.Located off the coast of South Australia state, Kangaroo Island is about 50% larger than Rhode Island and home to 4,500 people and what was a thriving ecotourism industry. But the wildfires that have been ravaging swaths of Australia have burned through one-third of the island, killing a father and his son and leaving behind a scorched wasteland and a devastated community. They also have left people scrambling to help the critters that have survived.”Caring for all these animals is quite amazing,” said Sam Mitchell, co-owner of the Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park. “However, we are seeing a lot that are too far gone. We are seeing kangaroos and koalas with their hands burned off — they stand no chance. It’s been quite emotional.”Inspired in part by the late Australian wildlife expert Steve Irwin, Mitchell and his wife, Dana, bought the commercial park seven years ago in their early 20s, and have been renovating the place and taking in rescue animals since. On Friday night with the fire approaching, Dana fled with their 18-month-old son, Connor, while Sam stayed behind to defend the park and their dream. A wind change spared the park from the wildfire’s path.Mitchell said the fires have killed thousands of koalas on the island, a particularly devastating loss because the creatures have remained largely disease-free there, while many koalas on mainland Australia suffer from chlamydia.The couple are currently caring for about 18 burned koalas, and they’ve had to euthanize many more.Meanwhile, Heidi Groffen could do nothing, as all eight monitoring stations she and her partner had set up to keep track of the mysterious Kangaroo Island dunnart, the mouse-like marsupial, melted in the flames.An ecologist and coordinator for the nonprofit Kangaroo Island Land for Wildlife, Groffen said the population of 300 or so dunnarts may have been wiped out altogether because they are too small to outrun wildfires, although she remains hopeful that some may have sheltered in rock crevices.”Even if there are survivors, there is no food for them now,” she said. “We’re hoping to bring some into captivity before they are completely gone.”She said the creatures have long fascinated her because so little is known about them.Also uncertain is the future for the 400 or so Kangaroo Island glossy black-cockatoos. Once prevalent on the South Australia mainland, the birds retreated to the island after humans destroyed much of their traditional habitat. “Unlike some of the other animals, the birds are in the best position to escape. They can get away from the fires a bit more,” said Daniella Teixeira, who is working on a doctoral degree about the birds at The University of Queensland.But much like the dunnarts, the cockatoos could find they don’t have enough food left on the island, particularly because they eat only from a single type of tree known as a drooping she-oak. And many hot spots on the island continue to burn.Teixeira said careful conservation work over the past 25 years has seen the glossy black-cockatoo population increase from 150, but those gains have been wiped out in the space of a week. She said she is currently writing the final chapter of the thesis she began in 2016, but that suddenly everything has changed.”It’s pretty hard to sit here and write a paper on them when I don’t know their status today,” she said.
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The death toll has risen to at least 24 and 23 more people are listed as injured in the collapse of a building in Cambodia that trapped workers under rubble, officials said Sunday. The seven-story concrete building collapsed Friday in the coastal town of Kep, about 160 km (100 miles) southwest of Phnom Penh. It occurred a year after another construction site collapsed, 
killing 28 people in Preah Sihanouk province. “Twenty-four people have died so far,” Kep Governor Ken Satha told Reuters. “Three of the bodies are not yet at hospital. They have not been pulled out yet.” An unknown number of workers remained trapped, Satha said, 
adding that authorities had detained a Cambodian couple, the 
owners of the building, for questioning. Prime Minister Hun Sen said Saturday that rescuers were still struggling to reach those missing in the rubble. Cambodia is undergoing a construction boom to serve growing 
crowds of Chinese tourists and investors. 
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A father and son who were battling flames for two days became the latest victims of the worst wildfire season in Australian history, and the path of destruction widened in at least three states Saturday because of strong winds and high temperatures. 
 
The death toll in the wildfire crisis rose to 23, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said after calling up about 3,000 reservists to battle the escalating fires, which were expected to be particularly fierce throughout the weekend. 
 
“We are facing another extremely difficult next 24 hours,” Morrison said at a televised news conference. “In recent times, particularly over the course of the balance of this week, we have seen this disaster escalate to an entirely new level.” 
 
Dick Lang, 78, an acclaimed bush pilot and outback safari operator, and his son Clayton, 43, were identified by Australian authorities after their bodies were found Saturday on a highway on Kangaroo Island. Their family said the losses left them “heartbroken and reeling from this double tragedy.” 
 
Lang, known as “Desert Dick,” led tours for travelers throughout Australia and other countries. “He loved the bush, he loved adventure and he loved Kangaroo Island,” his family said. 
 
Clayton Lang, one of Dick’s four sons, was a renowned plastic surgeon who specialized in hand surgery. Smoke from a fire at Batemans Bay, Australia, billows into the air, Jan. 4, 2020.The fire danger increased as temperatures rose Saturday to record levels across Australia, surpassing 43 degrees Celsius (109 Fahrenheit) in Canberra, the capital, and reaching a record-high 48.9 C (120 F) in Penrith, in Sydney’s western suburbs. 
 
Video and images shared on social media showed blood red skies taking over Mallacoota, a coastal town in Victoria where as many as 4,000 residents and tourists were forced to shelter on beaches as the navy tried to evacuate as many people as possible. ‘It’s not safe to move’
 
By Saturday evening, 3,600 firefighters were battling blazes across New South Wales state. Power was lost in some areas as fires downed transmission lines, and residents were warned that the worst might be yet to come. 
 
“We are now in a position where we are saying to people it’s not safe to move, it’s not safe to leave these areas,” state Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters. “We are in for a long night and I make no bones about that. We are still yet to hit the worst of it.” 
 
Morrison said the governor general had signed off on the calling up of reserves “to search and bring every possible capability to bear by deploying army brigades to fire-affected communities.” 
 
Defense Minister Linda Reynolds said it was the first time that reservists had been called up “in this way in living memory and, in fact, I believe for the first time in our nation’s history.” A satellite image shows wildfires burning east of Obrost, Victoria, Australia, Jan. 4, 2020.The deadly wildfires, which have been raging since September, have already burned about 5 million hectares (12.35 million acres) and destroyed more than 1,500 homes. 
 
The early and devastating start to Australia’s summer wildfires has also been catastrophic for the country’s wildlife, likely killing nearly 500 million birds, reptiles and mammals in New South Wales alone, Sydney University ecologist Chris Dickman told the Sydney Morning Herald. Frogs, bats and insects are excluded from his estimate, making the toll on creatures much greater. Climate change effects
 
Experts say climate change has exacerbated the unprecedented wildfires around the world. Morrison has been criticized for his repeated refusal to say climate change has been affecting the fires, instead deeming them a natural disaster. 
 
Some residents yelled at the prime minister earlier in the week during his visit to New South Wales, where people were upset with the lack of fire equipment their towns had. After fielding criticism for taking a family vacation in Hawaii as the wildfire crisis unfolded in December, Morrison announced he was postponing visits to India and Japan that were scheduled for this month. 
 
The government has committed 20 million Australian dollars ($14 million) to lease four firefighting aircraft for the duration of the crisis, and the helicopter-equipped HMAS Adelaide was deployed to assist evacuations from fire-ravaged areas. A DC-10 air tanker makes a pass to drop fire retardant on a bushfire in North Nowra, south of Sydney, Australia, Jan. 4, 2020.The deadly fire on Kangaroo Island broke containment lines Friday and was described as “virtually unstoppable” as it destroyed buildings and burned through more than 14,000 hectares (35,000 acres) of Flinders Chase National Park. While the warning level for the fire was reduced Saturday, the Country Fire Service said it was still a risk to lives and property. 
 
Rob Rogers, New South Wales Rural Fire Service deputy commissioner, warned that the fires could move “frighteningly quick.” Embers carried by the wind had the potential to spark new fires or enlarge existing blazes. 
 
Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fizsimmons said the 264,000-hectare (652,000-acre) Green Wattle Creek fire in a national park west of Sydney could spread into Sydney’s western suburbs. He said crews had been doing “extraordinary work” by setting controlled fires and using aircraft and machinery to try to keep the flames away. 
 
More than 130 fires were burning in New South Wales, with at least half of them out of control. 
 
Firefighters were battling a total of 53 fires across Victoria state, and conditions were expected to worsen with a southerly wind change. About 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) of bushland has already been burned through. Something positive
 
In a rare piece of good news, the number of people listed as missing or unaccounted for in Victoria was reduced from 28 to six. 
 
“We still have those dynamic and dangerous conditions — the low humidity, the strong winds and, what underpins that, the state is tinder dry,” Victoria Emergency Services Commissioner Andrew Crisp said. 
 
Thousands have already fled fire-threatened areas in Victoria, and local police reported heavy traffic flows on major roads. 
 
“If you might be thinking about whether you get out on a particular road close to you, well, there’s every chance that a fire could hit that particular road and you can’t get out,” Crisp said. 
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