B Environment News Today

A series of powerful earthquakes hit western Japan, leaving at least eight people dead and damaging buildings, vehicles and boats, with officials warning people in some areas on Tuesday to stay away from their homes because of a risk of more strong quakes.

With 2024 just two days old, Japan has already been rocked by dual disasters -- an earthquake on its western coast and a plane crash at a major Tokyo airport.

The United States is closing older nuclear power plants and only taking baby steps toward building new ones while China, the world's No. 2 economy, aggressively ramps up its nuclear power inventory to add 37 new reactors in the past decade.

After lithium-ion batteries burned in a large cargo ship's hold for a number of days, the U.S. Coast Guard said late Saturday that the fire was out and directed the ship to anchor near Dutch Harbor, Alaska.

Vehicles and buildings were seen shaking as video emerged of a series of strong earthquakes on Japan's western coastline.

A large cargo ship with a fire in its hold is being kept 2 miles (3.22 kilometers) offshore of an Alaska port as a precaution while efforts are undertaken to extinguish the flames, the U.S. Coast Guard said Saturday.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a helicopter flight Sunday to check the flooded regions in the northwest of the country, where rivers have swelled and overflowed homes, roads and fields after weeks of heavy rain.

More than 100 people stranded while fishing on an ice chunk that broke free on a Minnesota river were rescued Friday, authorities said.

A series of chemical explosions at an environmental service facility in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Friday sent three people to the hospital.

A light-water reactor at North Korea's main nuclear complex will likely be formally operational by next summer, South Korea's defense minister said, amid suspicions that the North may use it as a new source of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.