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Lebanon
Israeli Strikes, Operations Expand
Dozens of people were killed in a wave of Israeli strikes across southern and eastern Lebanon on Tuesday, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to step up military action against Hezbollah. Israel’s military said it struck more than 100 Hezbollah sites across southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley area overnight. Lebanon’s health ministry reports at least 31 people were killed in the latest attacks, including several children. The Israeli military clashed with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants on Tuesday along the strategic Litani River in southern Lebanon as Israeli troops pushed farther north. The clashes come amid a U.S.-brokered ceasefire that has been in place since mid-April and despite ongoing peace negotiations. The Litani River has been a de facto boundary in Lebanon, with large areas to the south under Israeli military control. Israel says it will not withdraw until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat to residents of its northern towns, while Hezbollah has vowed to fight until Israel stops its daily airstrikes and withdraws its troops from Lebanon.
This map depicts the location of strikes on Lebanese territory by the Israeli military on May 26. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: BBC
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Laos
Divers Save Five in Flooded Cave
Rescuers in Laos have found five people alive inside a flooded cave in Laos’s northwestern Xaysomboun Province after they were trapped for a week following heavy rain and landslides. Two other villagers who were with them remain missing, and rescuers are still searching for them. They reportedly entered the cave to search for gold deposits and wildlife before rising waters cut them off underground. The villagers were trapped around 984 feet (300 m) from the exit. The cave system, which extends deep underground, is also extremely narrow, with some chambers measuring only about 20 inches (50 cm) wide, rescuers say. Rescue teams from Laos and Thailand, including some divers from the 2018 Thai Cave Rescue, navigated narrow, water-filled passages to reach them. The mission was extremely dangerous due to flash flooding, unstable cave sediment, tight tunnels, poor visibility, and the risk that more rain could raise the water levels at any moment.
This map depicts the location of the remote cave in the Xaysomboun Province, in northwestern Laos, where five of seven missing people have been rescued after being trapped by flooding. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: The U.S. Sun
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Moon
NASA Reveals Moon Base Plans
The head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) revealed the agency’s plans for the first three uncrewed missions to begin construction of a base on the Moon. Led by Blue Origin, Astrobotic, and Intuitive Machines, the missions will deliver payloads of supplies for the base. After the first three missions, another dozen are planned for the building phase, with crews staying on the lunar surface for extended but temporary missions. The goal of maintaining a permanently crewed base on the Moon by 2032. The first mission, being undertaken by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, will drop supplies near the Moon’s South Pole, in what is being touted as the first privately-funded lunar lander mission in history. Ahead of that mission, Firefly Aerospace is set to deilver drones to the Moon in 2028 to scout the best possible locations for landing and the Moon Base itself.
This map depicts NASA’s plans for a base near the Moon’s South Pole, with the aim of maintaining a permanently-manned presence there from 2032. Click on the map to learn more.
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Q: What country is home to the world’s largest collection of enormous petroglyphs – ancient line art that can only be truly seen from hundreds of feet above the earth?
A: Peru
The Nazca Lines are a collection of huge geoglyphs – designs etched into the ground – located in the dry Nazca Desert in southern Peru, about 250 miles (400 km) south of the capital city, Lima. The approximately 2,000-year-old line art was made through depressions and shallow incisions in the desert floor, depicting various shapes, plants, and animals. Given their massive size, the Nazca Lines can only truly be appreciated when viewed from the air. Consisting of three basic types, straight lines, geometric designs, and pictorial representations, the Nazca Lines encompass over 1,100 pieces. Many of the shapes include triangles, rectangles, spirals, and even just straight lines, some of which run up to 30 miles (48 km) long. Of the plants and animals depicted, some of which measure up to 1,200 ft (370 m) long, some of the most famous are the hummingbird, the spider, the lizard, the monkey, and the cactus plant. Due to low levels of rainfall and wind to drive erosion in the desert, the Nazca Lines have remained largely intact throughout the centuries.
Source
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Q: What country is home to the world’s oldest surviving rainforest?
Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in tomorrow’s DailyGeo.
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