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Brazil
Plane Crash Kills 62
Sixty-two people died in a plane crash in Brazil’s São Paulo state on Friday. The flight from the southern city of Cascavel, operated by Brazilian domestic airline VoePass, was nearing its final destination of Guarulhos airport, just outside the city of São Paulo, when its transponder signaled that it was rapidly losing altitude. Video taken from the ground showed the plane take a wild spin downwards before making a fiery crash in a residential area, though no one on the ground was hurt. The pilots of the plane never made any emergency transmission. Both black box flight recorders and the bodies of all 62 victims have been recovered. A full report on the crash is not anticipated to be released for at least a month.
This map depicts the path of the VoePass flight from Brazil’s town of Cascavel to São Paulo that crashed as it neared its destination on Friday, killing all 62 people aboard. Click on the map to learn more.
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Greece
Wildfires Rage Near Athens
Over the weekend, a wave of wildfires reached Athens, resulting in regional evacuations. Hundreds of firefighters worked to contain the quickly expanding fires with the assistance of two dozen water-dropping aircraft. As the massive fire moved closer to Athens, thousands of Greek citizens were forced to flee their houses as some of the flames reached heights of up to 80 feet (25 m). Greece saw its warmest winter on record this year, along with the hottest months ever recorded in June and July. Because of these extreme weather conditions, meteorologists and government officials have issued health warnings about heat stroke and have enforced high-fire-risk regulations.
This map depicts the several fires that occurred in Greece on Monday. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: Newsweek
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Serbia
Thousands Protest Lithium Mine
Around 25,000 people protested in Belgrade this weekend against plans to mine one of Europe’s largest deposits of lithium – a necessary raw material for electric car batteries. Activists, who blocked railway and road traffic, say the mine would cause irreversible environmental destruction to Serbia’s Jadar Valley, an agriculturally rich region where the deposit is located. The protestors want legislators to permanently ban lithium and boron mining in Serbia, citing public health and land and water contamination concerns. A license granted to Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto was revoked in 2022 after widespread protests, but the project was restarted last month by the government with the European Union’s support. Rio Tinto’s $2.4bn Jadar Valley project could provide as much as nine-tenths of Europe’s current lithium needs and could turn Serbia into one of the world’s leading lithium producers, greatly reducing Europe’s electric car dependency on China.
This map depicts the planned locations for lithium mining operations in Serbia based around Rio Tinto’s Jadar Lithium-Borate Deposit. Click on the map to learn more.
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Q: What is the only sovereign nation outside Europe where Dutch is the official and prevailing language?
A: Suriname
Suriname is one of the smallest countries in South America, yet its population is one of the most ethnically diverse in the region. Suriname is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north, French Guinea to the east, Guyana to the west, and Brazil to the south. Formerly known as Dutch Guiana, Suriname was a plantation colony of the Netherlands that gained its independence on November 25, 1975. Suriname was inhabited as early as the fourth millennium BC by various Indigenous peoples, including the Arawaks, Caribs, and Wayana. Europeans arrived and contested the area in the 16th century, with the Dutch controlling much of the country’s current territory by the late 17th century. It is the only sovereign nation outside Europe where Dutch is the official and prevailing language of government, business, media, and education.
Source
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Q: What country occupies 70% of the disputed Western Sahara?
Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in tomorrow’s DailyGeo.
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