Briefly

AUSTRALIA

Melbourne toasts to end of long lockdown

Melbourne residents flocked to the city's pubs, restaurants and hair salons in the early hours of Friday after the world's most locked-down city emerged from its latest spate of restrictions designed to combat the spread of COVID-19. Australia's second-largest city has so far endured 262 days, or nearly nine months, of restrictions during six separate lockdowns since March 2020, representing the longest cumulative lockdown for any city in the world. Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, last year went through 234 straight days of lockdown. In Melbourne, people were seen cheering and clapping from their balconies, while car horns were honked continuously at 11:59 pm on Thursday when lockdown restrictions in place since early August ended.

SOUTH ASIA

Nearly 200 perish after heavy rains

Nearly 200 people have died in floods and landslides in India and Nepal, officials said on Thursday, with whole families buried in their homes and two young girls swept away as forecasters warned of yet more heavy rain. Experts say that they were victims of the evermore unpredictable and extreme weather that has hit South Asia in recent years caused by climate change and exacerbated by deforestation, damming and excessive development. Landslides and floods are common in India's Himalayan north. The flooding in the country adjoining the Arabian Sea－which scientists say is warming－has revived memories of 2018, when nearly 500 people perished in the worst flooding there in a century. In February, flash floods killed nearly 200 people and washed away houses in Uttarakhand state.

UNITED STATES

Prop gun fired by actor kills woman on set

US actor Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun that killed a cinematographer and wounded the director on a film set in New Mexico, US law enforcement officers said on Thursday. The incident happened on the set of Rust in the southwestern US state, where Baldwin is playing the lead in a 19th-century western. No charges have been filed over the incident, which is being investigated, with witness interviews ongoing. Movie sets usually have stringent rules over the use of prop weapons, but accidents have happened. Most famously, Brandon Lee, the son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, died during filming of The Crow after being shot by a gun that was supposed to fire blanks.

Agencies - Xinhua