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Weekly Update: Diving-suit marathon man makes for Loch Ness monster’s lair
EDINBURGH: A former leucemia victim who hit headlines by taking part in several above-ground marathon races clad in a heavy diving suit has taken his charity quest to the bottom of Loch Ness, with hopes for an encounter with the lake’s most famous denizen.
“If I do meet Nessie, I’m not sure who will be more scared, the monster or myself,” said 41-year-old Lloyd Scott on Sunday before sliding into the dark waters of the Scottish loch at the start of a charity event which will see him walk all the way around its edges underwater.
Scott, who in recent years has taken part in the marathons of London, New York and Edinburgh clad in his 80-kilogram (175-pound) deep-water diving suit is embarking on his latest endurance feat to coincide with a marathon around Loch Ness.
Aiming to raise money for a charity that helps children suffering from leucemia, he is to make a series of dives each day during which he will trudge along the lake bottom, fed by air from helpers in a boat above. He hopes to cover some five kilometres per day.
More than anything else, the possibility of encountering the legendary monster was uppermost in Scott’s mind.—AFP
British balloonist claims Atlanic record
LONDON: A British adventurer made it third time lucky on Monday, successfully completing his bid to become the first person to cross the Atlantic ocean solo in an open wicker basket balloon, his team said.
David Hempleman-Adams, 46, landed safely in a hedge alongside a field near Blackpool, northwest England, at around 6:00 pm local time (1700 GMT), four days after launching from the town of Sussex in eastern Canada on Friday.
Hempleman-Adams will now await verification of his record by the British Balloon and Airship Club as well as the Guinness Book of Records.
“We are all very relieved and very happy that he had made it this time and we are delighted he has made a safe landing which was paramount,” said his wife Claire.
In the final few hours of his journey, the explorer endured hail and snow storms as he flew the balloon at 4.3 km over the Irish Sea in thick cloud, said his “Atlantic Challenge” team.
The explorer’s success comes after two previous attempts at the solo Atlantic crossing. Hempleman-Adams’ previous records include being the first to fly over the North Pole in a balloon and the first to walk solo unsupported to the geomagnetic North Polo.
He has completed the “Explorer’s Grand Slam” — reaching North and South geographical and magnetic Poles and scaling the highest mountain in each of the seven continents, including Mount Everest.— AFP
Orangutans could become extinct in 20 years: report
WASHINGTON: Orangutans could disappear within the next 10 to 20 years if illegal logging that is destroying their habitat is not stopped, according to a report released on Monday.
Anthropologist Cheryl Knott of Harvard University said loggers have infringed on the apes’ habitat in Gunung Palung National Park, on the Indonesian island of Borneo. Some 2,500 orangutans — about 10 per cent of the world’s remaining wild population of the apes — live in the park.
“At the current rate of habitat destruction, orangutans could be extinct in the wild in 10 to 20 years. We must stop this trend — the alternative is unthinkable,” Knott, who has studied the park’s apes, wrote in the October issue of National Geographic.
Orangutans, close kin to humans, live only on Borneo and the nearby island of Sumatra. By some estimates, more than 80 percent of their original habitat in Indonesia and Malaysia has been destroyed, and deforestation has escalated with political and economic turmoil.— AFP
Gorilla flees zoo, roams Boston suburb
BOSTON: A gorilla escaped from Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo on Sunday and injured at least one person before being subdued with tranquilizer darts, police and witnesses said.
A Boston police spokeswoman said a “juvenile” was taken to hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening. It was not clear how the injuries were inflicted.
Local residents said police officers could be seen fleeing with guns drawn when the gorilla emerged from the zoo and roamed streets in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood.—Reuters
Collapsing mountain threatens to engulf town
DEHRADUN: The northern Indian tourist town of Uttar Kashi evacuated thousands of people as mountain boulders rained down for the sixth day Tuesday, burying hotels and houses in their path, officials said.
Geologists in the state of Uttaranchal described the collapsing mountain as the deadliest ecological calamity to threaten the scenic Uttar Kashi valley which adjoins China.
“We have evacuated 4,000 families as some boulders as large as small cars have been raining down from a height of 151 metres into the town for the last six days,” town administrator Kamlesh Pant told AFP by telephone.
Pant said four hotels and 100 residential buildings had been wiped out by the avalanche of rocks from the collapsing Varunavat mountain into the valley which is located 1,158 metres above the sea.
Officials in the Uttaranchal state capital of Dehradun warned the town would have to be abandoned if the landslip did not halt.
State Chief Minister Narayan Dutt Tiwary said he has sought one billion rupees from the federal government in New Delhi as SOS funds to tackle the calamity.
S.K. Ghildiyal, a scientist with the Geological Survey of India, said the mountain could continue to tumble.
“The landslide is likely to continue because the area was once on a glacier and hence it is unstable,” Ghildiyal said.— AFP
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