(LONDON) — An ant species can amputate each other’s legs and can also determine whether it is needed depending on the location of the wound, a new study finds.
Ants are territorial and can get into rough encounters with rival colonies which can lead to injuries, according to scientists. But Florida carpenter ants–also known as Camponotus floridanus–have adopted an effective wound treatment: amputation, according to the study published in Current Biology.
The process of amputation takes about 40 minutes and requires one ant to chew on its nestmate’s affected leg, according to Laurent Keller, one of the researchers in the study.
“They go to the upper parts [of the ant’s leg and] the mandibula will cut it,” Keller told ABC News. “The other ant will clean the new wound.”
After a researcher reported his observation of amputation to other researchers in a lab in Switzerland, they noticed that the carpenter ants selectively conducted amputations.
If an injury was near the femur rather than the tibia, ants would amputate. Researchers were interested in the decision process behind amputation and performed micro-CT scans on the amputated ants, according to the study.
The researchers hypothesized that the closer the injured muscle was to the body the more likely the surgery would occur.
“We had a hypothesis that maybe the injury level of a tibia had an infection that evolved too quickly for ants to cut the leg to prevent infection,” stated Keller.
According to the study, the ant’s femur is primarily responsible for leg hemolymph circulation, similar to a human’s blood flow, and therefore cutting it off slows the rate of an infection spreading and allows for sufficient time to perform an amputation.
Ants that had a tibia injury weren’t left for dead. Instead, they received wound care, the researchers said. Keller noted that there hasn’t been any research on how an ant cleans a wound.
“We have not studied how they do it really, but we figure that mandibula must be really clean when they do,” stated Keller.
The study in Current Biology builds on previous research that shows how termite-hunting ants have metapleural glands that allow them to produce an antimicrobial compound to treat affected wounds. However, carpenter ants, amongst other communities, have lost this ability due to evolution.
Keller said future research will involve looking at other ant communities that have lost metapleural glands and finding common ancestors to evaluate when and how the behavior evolved.
While humans have conducted medical amputations for over 30,000 years, this study reports the first observation of how a non-human species is capable of performing purposeful surgery.
“We have a cultural transmission of what has been learned and for ants, it is a behavior that evolved by an innate basis,” stated Keller.
(LONDON) — On the Fourth of July, Americans across the country will be taking much of the day to relax and take a break with family. But in the UK it’s Election Day.
The British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak scheduled elections for the Fourth of July and it’s shaping up to be a historic moment.
“Start Here” spoke with ABC News’ Foreign Correspondent James Longman in London to break it all down.
START HERE: James, last time we spoke you talked about the two main parties, right? Conservative on the right, Labor on the left and you said Conservatives have been in power so long it would be difficult to find people in a country that’s so disappointed with this government to be like, ‘yes several more years of these people, please!’ Is that still the case or what is the state of play there?
JAMES LONGMAN: Brad, it’s absolutely the case. The story of this election hasn’t been who will win. It’s been a question of by how much the Conservatives will lose and it is truly astronomical. I mean, this election is turning into a historic one. We don’t often have these in Britain. There are watershed elections, where it’s not just a change of government but it upturns the entire system.
If Labour wins, the Prime Minister will be Keir Starmer, who is not a particularly colorful performer. He’s seen as a pretty boring individual. I think we spoke about this last time, a bit of a Mr. Bean. He was in the TV debates with Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, and it was generally considered that it was a draw, but that Sunak performed better because he’s kind of better in that kind of showman position, if you like.
Starmer, a former prosecutor, 61 years old, so older than most of our recent prime ministers in Britain. Although rather a lot younger than either of your two presidential candidates.
Just as a recap: There are 650 constituencies or voting districts in Britain. Each of those sends a lawmaker to Parliament. You need a majority to form the government, so you basically need 326 seats. Now, usually in our system each, you know, government will probably trade small majorities of maybe 330, 340 seats, you know. This is, you’re talking 20-25 seats in it.
The latest poll has Labor winning 484 seats and the Conservatives — and this is the real big story in this country– on just 64. That’s the lowest estimate.
When you think the last election, in 2019, Boris Johnson won the Conservatives 365 seats, that is an almost complete wipeout of the governing Conservative parties parliamentary presence. This puts it up there with some of our most extraordinary and consequential elections in British history.
START HERE: Pardon my American bluntness: Why have conservatives screwed it up so much, I guess? What is going on?
LONGMAN: Well, partly it’s an incumbency issue. I mean, you know, any government, any power, any party that’s been in power for as long as the Conservatives have– 14 years — are gonna struggle trying to sell another term in government and this is what often happens. If you look back, you know the Tories, when they took over from the Labour Party, that was after some 13 years in power for the Labour Party.
Then, when the Labour Party won what was that historic victory in 1997 from Tony Blair, they took over after the Conservatives have been in power, by then for 18 years. So, in some ways it’s part of a pattern. It’s just the scale of the Conservative loss which is truly extraordinary and that’s because people in this country feel there’s a massive cost-of-living crisis.
I know that the people are feeling that in the United States at the moment; inflation is something that’s hit around the world. There’s a sense that the stewards of this government, this country, have not dealt with that properly. We have an NHS, National Health Service, which people are very proud of in this country. But it is on its knees – waiting times for surgery are incredibly long, ambulances are lining up outside hospitals, we’ve got school buildings which are not fit for purpose, sewage is being pumped into our waterways, immigration is a massive issue here, prisons are overcrowded.
Brad, I could go on and on and on and on, but basically the feeling in this country is that nothing works and they want a change.
START HERE: But what’s so interesting to me, James, is that when you describe that Conservatives have been in power for 14 years, of course if people are upset they are the ones who are gonna pay.
But when you look at the rest of Europe, far-right parties, like ultra-conservative parties, are very much on the rise. So I’m wondering how high are the stakes in Britain and how does this figure in the kind of the larger scheme of Europe at this point?
LONGMAN: One of the big dynamics of this election, which wasn’t present the last time around, was we not only have the Labour Party taking away votes from the Conservatives on the left, we have a new insurgent right-wing party in Reform which is taking votes away from the Conservatives on the right.
They’re being squeezed from both sides and Reform would have quite a lot in common with a number of the far-right parties, which have taken Europe by storm really over the last few months. And we’ve seen in the European elections the AFD in Germany’s massive gains there; in France, of course, are National Front — the French are in the midst of an incredibly important election with the National Front may actually end up or actually, in all likelihood, will take control of the National Assembly. You have in the Netherlands as well a right-wing group there.
I think it’s, in part, if you look at this in the wider, European context, you’re looking at a situation where it’s anti-incumbency: whoever is in power, whatever the establishment is, people have had enough.
It happens that in Britain, the Conservatives to the right of the political spectrum have been the ones in power, but again we do have this extra right, this far right if you like, group in Reform, run by Nigel Farage, who is a friend of Donald Trump. He repeats it [that he’s Trump’s friend] any chance he gets. It is a dynamic in Britain, the far right, although it is not as powerful as it is in other parts of Europe, and Nigel Farage will not get huge numbers in this election, but he may well – for the 8th time of trying – become a lawmaker in the Houses of Parliament.
START HERE: That’s interesting, though, that just because Conservatives have been in charge doesn’t mean that Britain is getting way more left-leaning or way more progressive. It just means that it sort of ‘anyone but’ at this point. All right, James Longman, we’ll see what happens tomorrow. Thank you.
An Israeli army main battle tank moves along an area near the border with the Gaza Strip and southern Israel, July 2, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)
(TEL AVIV, Israel) — The Israeli military is preparing a phased pullout from Gaza and quietly pressing the government to broker a truce with Hamas as quickly as possible, as the military works to clear the decks ahead of what officials say could be a withering war with the powerful Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah.
One Israeli official said Tuesday that if the barometer is destroying Hamas’s pre-war capabilities — which included clearly designated battalions with sophisticated coordination and communications — and removing Hamas from Gaza’s government, then Israel has already achieved that.
Multiple Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have signaled that Israel will begin to draw down forces in Gaza as it enters into what it has called “Phase C” of its war, with a significantly reduced number of troops focusing on what one official described as “fighting Hamas hotspots and hunting high-value targets.”
Another Israeli official conceded to ABC News that “Hamas still has a large influence over what’s taking place in Gaza – that’s the main thing. We need to try to create an alternative.”
Israel’s own status map, which depicts the fighting condition of all of Hamas’ 24 pre-war battalions, designates one of the battalions in Rafah as green, which means operational, and another as orange, which is semi-operational.
Hamas’ continued influence in Gaza has not fully mitigated lawlessness there, with European and Israeli officials warning for months that the Gaza Strip could turn into “Mogadishu on the Mediterranean,” a reference to the decades of internecine fighting and instability in Somalia’s capital.
In high-level meetings in Washington last week, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin discussed potential “day after” plans for Gaza, according to four U.S. and Israeli officials who spoke to ABC News.
One of the plans would comprise an international “board of directors” that U.S. officials are likening to a steering committee of nations that would include the UAE, Egypt, and possibly Jordan. Morocco would send peacekeepers to Gaza, with the U.S. somehow providing general oversight and command and control. The response from Arab states to the proposal has been lukewarm, a senior official with direct knowledge of the situation told ABC News.
The “board of directors” would be coupled with a new a “bottom up” force that the U.S. would train and that would include contingents from the Palestinian Authority to lend it legitimacy, though not so many Palestinian contingents that Netanyahu, who has publicly dismissed any Palestinian Authority role in a future Gaza, would reject the plan, a senior Israeli official told ABC News.
The training of the Palestinian force in Gaza would be supervised by U.S. Lt. Gen. Michael Fenzel, United States Security Coordinator of the Israel-Palestinian Authority who is based in Jerusalem. These units would begin to operate in small enclaves in Gaza.
Officials said it remains doubtful that these kinds of alternatives could be stood up quickly, which would potentially leave Hamas to control the power vacuum in Gaza. But a group of top Israeli officials interviewed this week said crushing an already debilitated Hamas, currently capable only of small-scale attacks on Israel, should be sidelined in favor of countering Hezbollah, which poses an existential threat to the state.
To that end, the officials said, Israel should muster forces and conserve ammunition for an impending confrontation with Hezbollah, which has boasted of tens of thousands of Iranian-trained fighters, many of them seasoned from fighting in Syria’s civil war, and further thousands of missiles and rockets that could well overwhelm Israel’s air defenses.
The Israeli officials said Israel has sufficient offensive munitions for a war with Hezbollah, but could use more from the U.S.
Hezbollah said it began its cross-border war with Israel on Oct. 8, following the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, out of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Hezbollah has signaled that it wouldn’t agree to the U.S.-brokered cease-fire deal until Israel ends the war in Gaza. The Israeli sources told ABC News that Hamas was stalling on committing to terms on the internationally brokered cease-fire knowing that a potential war with Hezbollah would significantly weaken Israel.
The larger issue is that regardless of the approach, it will take time, which is working against the process, U.S. and Israeli officials say, but is working in favor of Hamas. Multiple, multi-day operations in which Israel has reentered areas it cleared months ago and where Hamas has since regrouped have shown that the terrorist group has slowly and quietly reasserted itself in Gaza.
“Hamas has a large influence over what’s taking place in Gaza and that’s the main reason we need to try to create an alternative,” an Israeli official told ABC News. “You even see that over the effort Hamas has taken to control the looting of aid convoys.”
Right now, Hamas has a head start, and it’s unclear whether an international force can be deployed, or a suitable local force can be trained, before it regains a potentially indomitable level of local control.
(NEW YORK) — As Hurricane Beryl barrels toward Jamaica, the country’s prime minister, Andrew Holness, pre-emptively declared the entire island a disaster area in an address to the public on Tuesday night.
Holmes also said an island-wide curfew will be in place from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time Wednesday.
Although the cyclone has lost some steam as it closes in on Jamaica, it has already caused six deaths in the Caribbean.
According to the National Hurricane Center, Beryl was downgraded to a Category 4 from a Category 5, but its maximum sustained winds remained dangerous at 155 mph.
Beryl is forecast to continue to weaken as it moves through the Caribbean Sea but is still expected to be a major hurricane when it reaches Jamaica on Wednesday.
In anticipation of the storm, Jamaican officials plan to shutter three airports on Tuesday. They will stay closed through Wednesday, and reopening will be announced pending post-storm assessments.
According to the Jamaica Tourist Board, on Tuesday night, Sangster International Airport (Montego Bay) will close at 11:59 p.m., Norman Manley International Airport (Kingston) will close at 10:00 p.m., and Ian Fleming International Airport (Ocho Rios) will close at 7:00 p.m.
The hurricane killed three people in Cariacou in Grenada, where it made landfall on Monday, officials said. Another death from the storm was reported in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and two people were killed in northern Venezuela, officials in those countries said.
Overnight, Hurricane Beryl had strengthened into a Category 5 as it moved through the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea, becoming the strongest July Atlantic hurricane on record.
Earlier Tuesday, Beryl was packing maximum winds of 165 mph. The hurricane surpassed the July record of 160 mph maximum winds produced by Hurricane Emily in 2005, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Hurricane Beryl is expected to reach Jamaica and is forecast to produce rainfall totals of 4 to 8 inches across the mountainous island country, with isolated amounts of up to 12 inches possible. This could trigger flash flooding in vulnerable areas.
The storm was shifting slightly north, taking it on a trajectory that would bring it dangerously close to the coast of Jamaica, possibly Wednesday afternoon or evening, with sustained maximum winds of 130 mph. A storm surge of up to 8 feet is expected, and the hurricane is expected to dump up to a foot of rain.
The outer bands of Beryl could also impact southern portions of the Dominican Republic and Haiti late Tuesday and into Wednesday, potentially causing 2 to 6 inches of rain in those areas.
Residents of St. Vincent and the Grenadines were cleaning up Tuesday and assessing damage. Schools, homes, buildings and farmland sustained extensive hurricane damage, officials said. On Union Island, which is part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, authorities said 90% of the houses were either destroyed or severely damaged, and the roof of the Union Island airport was ripped off by the hurricane’s buzzsaw-like winds. Heavy damage was also reported at Argyle International Airport on St. Vincent.
The one death reported in the Grenadines occurred on Bequia Island, officials said.
After touring the damaged areas on Tuesday, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves told reporters that Beryl “left in its wake immense destruction.”
Sea surface temperatures in the eastern Caribbean Sea, where Beryl is currently located, are running warmer than average for this time of the year, more in line with where they would be at the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season rather than early July. This is providing ample fuel for Beryl’s extreme intensification.
The latest forecast calls for little change in strength overnight, with a gradual weakening trend commencing on Tuesday as the storm sweeps west-northwestward across the Caribbean Sea.
Beryl will continue to track across the Caribbean Sea throughout the week, closing in on Jamaica on Wednesday, likely weakening to a Category 2 storm by then. The center and worst impacts will likely pass south of the island; however, the latest forecast now has the center of the storm passing a little closer to Jamaica, so more intense rain, wind and storm surge impacts will be possible on the current track.
A weakening trend will continue through the rest of the week as Beryl sweeps across the Caribbean Sea and encounters less favorable atmospheric conditions.
Beryl will then aim for Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula by the end of the week. The current forecast calls for a second landfall sometime on Friday along the eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Beyond that, the system will likely move into the southwestern Gulf of Mexico/Bay of Campeche, continuing to weaken, while taking aim at parts of eastern Mexico next weekend as a tropical storm.
Unfortunately, the same general area of eastern Mexico will likely now see impacts from all three of the first named storms of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. After being hit by Alberto and Tropical Storm Chris, Beryl will likely bring at least some impacts to the same region by later in the upcoming weekend.
Dr. Cecilia Laguzzi speaks with “Good Morning America,” July 2, 2024. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Dr. Cecilia Laguzzi was sleeping while on an overnight flight home to Uruguay when the mother of two said she was woken up by severe turbulence and found her 2-year-old son stuck in the ceiling above the overhead compartment.
“It was an image I will never forget,” Laguzzi told ABC News’ Good Morning America following the incident on the Air Europa flight, which the airline said resulted in several passengers being hurtled toward the ceiling of the cabin.
The flight from Madrid to Montevideo, Uruguay, experienced “heavy” turbulence early Monday morning and was diverted to Brazil “due to the nature of the turbulence and for safety reasons,” the airline said. The plane landed safely at Natal International Airport in São Gonçalo do Amarante and several passengers were treated for serious injuries, it said.
Laguzzi, a surgeon, said she was returning home from a three-month internship in Barcelona and was traveling with her husband and their two young children when she was woken up by unknown objects hitting her, she said.
“I felt something very hard hitting my head and then my back, and I fell on my head, and I couldn’t get up at first,” she said. “I remember I was in the plane, and I could feel it like falling, like free falling, for what felt like an eternity.”
Laguzzi estimates that after six or seven seconds, the plane resumed normal operations, at which point she started looking for her children, who had been sleeping several seats away near her husband. She found her 4-year-old daughter with her husband but couldn’t find her son in the dark, “chaotic” aftermath with passengers and luggage on the floor of the plane.
“We were trying to find him on the floor and started screaming his name until someone told me, ‘Are you looking for a baby?’ and I said, Yes,” she said. “He said, ‘Well, it’s up there,’ and he pointed up, and the minute I look up he was there crying, looking at us.”
Laguzzi said they found their son above the luggage compartment where plastic had broken off, and her husband was able to retrieve him.
“I’ll never forget how I felt in that moment,” she said. “He was crying, he was very scared, and we were all very scared as well, but the moment I took him in my arms, he calmed down.”
Laguzzi said she looked him over and he seemed fine. She said her family is a “little bruised up,” but they are otherwise OK.
Forty people were injured, some seriously, during the incident, officials said. Thirty people received medical care at the airport, while 10 had to be transported to the hospital for further examination, the airport confirmed to ABC News Monday night.
Seven passengers remained hospitalized in serious but not life-threatening condition as of Tuesday morning, Air Europa confirmed to ABC News.
Laguzzi said she went to tend to other passengers after a flight attendant asked for a doctor on the plane.
“Most of the people I saw had severe back pain from the trauma, but I also saw some fractures — legs, shoulders, collarbone, nose fracture,” she said. “As these plastic panels fell down, they fell on people and they fell on their faces, arms and such.”
Laguzzi said that following her assessment of the injuries, a crew member asked her if she thought the plane should make an emergency landing in Brazil or continue on to its final destination in Uruguay — another four hours away. The doctor urged the crew to land as soon as possible to get the injured immediate care, she said.
The plane requested an emergency landing around 2:32 a.m. local time Monday, according to the Natal airport. Laguzzi said first responders started triaging patients once they landed. After several hours of waiting on the plane and then in the airport, passengers started being transported to Recife by bus to continue their flight to Montevideo, she said.
Laguzzi said she was a little nervous to get back on a plane but “I just wanted to get home, whatever it took.” The family made it back home Tuesday morning, she said.
The incident remains under investigation, Air Europa said.
The plane flew through an area called the Intertropical Convergence Zone, where there is a belt of thunderstorms, according to ABC News contributor Col. Steve Ganyard, a retired Marine Corps fighter pilot.
Laguzzi said the whole ordeal was “traumatizing,” and she doesn’t plan on flying “for a long time.”
“It was very hard to be in these situations,” she said. “When you have small children, you feel so helpless, you know. You wish you could do more, but the situation is very overwhelming.”
Ganyard said when it comes to turbulence there are two things to remember.
“One is the airplane is very, very strong,” he said. “The second is, nobody that’s wearing a seatbelt gets hurt. It’s only the people who are not belted in that get hurt.”
(LONDON) — Police in Australia have launched a search near a remote community for a missing 12-year-old child after reports that they were attacked and taken by a crocodile while swimming in a creek.
The incident took place on Tuesday evening at about 5:30 p.m. local time in the remote community of Palumpa — approximately a seven-hour drive southwest of Darwin with a population of about 400 people — in Australia’s Northern Territory, according to the Northern Territory Police, Fire & Emergency services in a statement released on Wednesday.
“Around 5:30pm last night, police received reports of a missing 12-year-old child who was last seen swimming at Mango Creek,” authorities said. “Initial reports stated the child had been attacked by a crocodile. Community members and Peppimenarti Police attended the scene and began searching for the child, who has yet to be located.”
A search and rescue team was immediately deployed into the area with officers from Wadeye assisting but the child has still not been located, according to officials.
“Local officers are on scene and our thoughts are with the family and the community,” said Senior Sgt. Erica Gibson. “Officers are currently searching a large section of the creek via boat and we thank the community for their ongoing assistance.”
The Northern Territory is home to the world’s largest wild crocodile population, with more than 100,000 of the predators in the wild, according to Australia’s Northern Territory tourism website.
“If you’ve ever wanted to see a crocodile in the wild, the NT is the best place in the world to do it,” the page reads.
While the crocodiles can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh up to 1 ton (2,000 pounds), attacks on humans are very rare, though officials warn to steer clear of them.
“They have a taste for fish, but will eat just about anything including cows and buffaloes, wild boar, turtles, birds and crabs,” according to the NT’s tourism website. “Don’t attempt to feed any wild crocodiles during your stay, and don’t swim in any waterway or camp, fish or walk in any area where crocodile hazard signs are posted. The best way to avoid getting hurt is to avoid crocodiles in the wild altogether.”
(NEW YORK) — As the death toll from Hurricane Beryl climbed to six on Tuesday, the cyclone was losing some steam as it closed in on Jamaica.
According to the National Hurricane Center, Beryl was downgraded to a Category 4 from a Category 5, but its maximum sustained winds remained dangerous at 155 mph.
Beryl is forecast to continue to weaken as it moves through the Caribbean Sea but is still expected to be a major hurricane when it reaches Jamaica on Wednesday.
The hurricane has killed three people in Cariacou in Grenada, where it made landfall on Monday, officials said. Another death from the storm was reported in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and two people were killed in northern Venezuela, officials in those countries said.
Overnight, Hurricane Beryl had strengthened into a Category 5 as it moved through the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea, becoming the strongest July Atlantic hurricane on record.
Earlier Tuesday, Beryl was packing maximum winds of 165 mph. The hurricane surpassed the July record of 160 mph maximum winds produced by Hurricane Emily in 2005, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Hurricane Beryl is expected to reach Jamaica and is forecast to produce rainfall totals of 4 to 8 inches across the mountainous island country, with isolated amounts of up to 12 inches possible. This could trigger flash flooding in vulnerable areas.
The storm was shifting slightly north, taking it on a trajectory that would bring it dangerously close to the coast of Jamaica possibly Wednesday afternoon or evening with sustained maximum winds of 130 mph. A storm surge of up to 8 feet is expected and the hurricane is expected to dump up to a foot of rain.
The outer bands of Beryl could also impact southern portions of the Dominican Republic and Haiti late Tuesday and into Wednesday, potentially causing 2 to 6 inches of rain in those areas.
Residents of St. Vincent and the Grenadines were cleaning up Tuesday and assessing damage. Schools, homes, buildings and farmland sustained extensive hurricane damage, officials said. On Union Island, which is part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, authorities said 90% of the houses were either destroyed or severely damaged and the roof of the Union Island airport was ripped off by the hurricane’s buzzsaw-like winds. Heavy damage was also reported at Argyle International Airport on St. Vincent.
The one death reported in the Grenadines occurred on Bequia Island, officials said.
After touring the damaged areas on Tuesday, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves told reporters that Beryl “left in its wake immense destruction.”
Sea surface temperatures in the eastern Caribbean Sea, where Beryl is currently located, are running warmer than average for this time of the year, more in line with where they would be at the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season rather than early July. This is providing ample fuel for Beryl’s extreme intensification.
The latest forecast calls for little change in strength overnight, with a gradual weakening trend commencing on Tuesday as the storm sweeps west-northwestward across the Caribbean Sea.
Beryl will continue to track across the Caribbean Sea throughout the week, closing in on Jamaica on Wednesday, likely weakening to a Category 2 storm by then. The center and worst impacts will likely pass south of the island; however, the latest forecast now has the center of the storm passing a little closer to Jamaica, so more intense rain, wind and storm surge impacts will be possible on the current track.
A weakening trend will continue through the rest of the week as Beryl sweeps across the Caribbean Sea and encounters less favorable atmospheric conditions.
Beryl will then aim for Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula by the end of the week. The current forecast calls for a second landfall sometime on Friday along the eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Beyond that, the system will likely move into the southwestern Gulf of Mexico/Bay of Campeche, continuing to weaken, while taking aim at parts of eastern Mexico next weekend as a tropical storm.
Unfortunately, the same general area of eastern Mexico will likely now see impacts from all three of the first named storms of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. After being hit by Alberto and Tropical Storm Chris, Beryl will likely bring at least some impacts to the same region by later in the upcoming weekend.
(SAO GONCALO DO AMARANTE, Brazil) — Forty people were injured, some seriously, after an Air Europa flight from Spain to Uruguay experienced strong turbulence and was diverted to Brazil, officials said.
Flight UX045 experienced “heavy” turbulence early Monday morning but landed safely at Natal International Airport in São Gonçalo do Amarante, the airline said. The plane requested an emergency landing around 2:32 a.m. local time, according to the airport.
Thirty people received medical care at the airport, while 10 had to be transported to the hospital for further examination, the airport confirmed to ABC News Monday night.
Seven passengers remain hospitalized in serious but not life-threatening condition, Air Europa confirmed to ABC News on Tuesday morning.
Some passengers were hurtled toward the ceiling of the cabin, the airline said.
Passenger videos showed damage to the cabin of the plane and injured passengers in neck braces lying on their backs in the aisle. In one video, a man could be seen dangling from an overhead compartment, though it is unclear how he ended up there.
The flight had departed Madrid-Barajas and was en route to Carrasco International Airport in Montevideo, Uruguay, when the incident occurred, according to the airline. Natal was the closest airport to address the passengers’ medical needs, the airline said.
“Due to the nature of the turbulence and for safety reasons, it was decided to divert the flight to Natal International Airport in Brazil,” the airline said.
The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner was carrying 325 passengers at the time.
Passengers in good condition were transported to Recife, where a plane that departed Madrid arrived early Tuesday to continue their trip to Montevideo, Air Europa said.
The original aircraft is not in use and will be examined, the airline said.
(NEW YORK) — As Hurricane Beryl strengthened to a Category 5 over the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea, it continued to break records by becoming the strongest July Atlantic hurricane on record.
Packing maximum winds of 165 mph on Tuesday, Beryl surpassed the July record of 160 mph maximum winds produced by Hurricane Emily in 2005, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Beryl has already killed one person when it slammed into Carriacou Island in Grenada on Monday.
Hurricane Beryl is expected to reach Jamaica on Wednesday and is forecast to produce rainfall totals of 4 to 8 inches across the mountainous island country, with isolated amounts of up to 12 inches possible. This could trigger flash flooding in vulnerable areas.
The outer bands of Beryl could impact southern portions of the Dominican Republic and Haiti beginning late Tuesday into Wednesday, potentially causing 2 to 6 inches of rain in these areas.
Sea surface temperatures in the eastern Caribbean Sea, where Beryl is currently located, are running warmer than average for this time of the year, more in line with where they would be at the peak of the Atlantic Hurricane Season rather than early July. This is providing ample fuel for Beryl’s extreme intensification.
The latest forecast calls for little change in strength overnight, with a gradual weakening trend commencing on Tuesday as the storm sweeps west-northwestward across the Caribbean Sea.
Beryl will continue to track across the Caribbean Sea throughout the week, closing in on Jamaica on Wednesday, likely weakening to a Category 2 storm by then. The center and worst impacts will likely pass south of the island; however, the latest forecast now has the center of the storm passing a little closer to Jamaica, so more intense rain, wind and storm surge impacts will be possible on the current track.
A weakening trend will continue through the rest of the week as Beryl sweeps across the Caribbean Sea and encounters less favorable atmospheric conditions.
Beryl will then take aim at Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula by the end of the week. The current forecast calls for a second landfall sometime on Friday along the eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Beyond that, the system will likely move into the southwestern Gulf of Mexico/Bay of Campeche, continuing to weaken, while taking aim at parts of eastern Mexico next weekend as a tropical storm.
Unfortunately, the same general area of eastern Mexico will likely now see impacts from all three of the first named storms of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. After being hit by Alberto and Tropical Storm Chris, Beryl will likely bring at least some impacts to the same region by later in the upcoming weekend.
(NEW YORK) — After Hurricane Beryl strengthened to a Category 5 while over the ocean, a Hurricane warning is now in effect for Jamaica, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Hurricane Beryl is expected to produce rainfall totals of 4 to 8 inches across portions of Jamaica on Wednesday, with isolated amounts of up to 12 inches possible. This could trigger flash flooding in vulnerable areas.
The outer bands of Beryl could impact southern portions of the Dominican Republic and Haiti beginning late Tuesday into Wednesday, potentially causing 2 to 6 inches of rain in these areas.
Sea surface temperatures in the eastern Caribbean Sea, where Beryl is currently located, are running warmer than average for this time of the year, more in line with where they would be at the peak of the Atlantic Hurricane Season rather than early July. This is providing ample fuel for Beryl’s extreme intensification.
The latest forecast calls for little change in strength overnight, with a gradual weakening trend commencing on Tuesday as the storm sweeps west-northwestward across the Caribbean Sea.
Beryl will continue to track across the Caribbean Sea throughout the week, closing in on Jamaica on Wednesday, likely weakening to a Category 2 storm by then. The center and worst impacts will likely pass south of the island; however, the latest forecast now has the center of the storm passing a little closer to Jamaica, so more intense rain, wind and storm surge impacts will be possible on the current track.
A weakening trend will continue through the rest of the week as Beryl sweeps across the Caribbean Sea and encounters less favorable atmospheric conditions.
Beryl will then take aim at Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula by the end of the week. The current forecast calls for a second landfall sometime on Friday along the eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Beyond that, the system will likely move into the southwestern Gulf of Mexico/Bay of Campeche, continuing to weaken, while taking aim at parts of eastern Mexico next weekend as a tropical storm.
Unfortunately, the same general area of eastern Mexico will likely now see impacts from all three of the first named storms of the 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season. After being hit by Alberto and just recently by Tropical Storm Chris over the past 24 hours, Beryl will likely bring at least some impacts to the same region by later in the upcoming weekend.
