Matiulhaq Khalis, Director General of the National Environmental Protection Agency, has left for Russia at the official invitation of the Russian Federation to participate in Nevsky International Ecological Congress.

According to a statement issued by the agency, the congress will be held on May 22 and 23 in the city of Saint Petersburg, Russia, with the participation of representatives from around 40 countries.

The purpose of this congress is to expand global dialogue on environmental issues and climate change, to develop joint solutions, strengthen cooperation strategies, and promote responsible action in order to establish a balance between human society, natural resources, and economic development.

Khalis will present information to participants regarding the environmental situation, climate challenges, and existing problems in Afghanistan.

He will also raise Afghanistan’s concerns and challenges related to prolonged drought, water scarcity, deforestation, degradation of natural resources, soil and air pollution, and threats posed by climate change, the statement read.

A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 shook Istanbul on Wednesday, Turkey’s AFAD disaster agency said, one of the strongest quakes to strike the city of 16 million in recent years.

There were no immediate reports of damage, but people evacuated buildings as the quake hit and shook the city, located on the European and Asian shores of the Bosphorus strait.

The epicentre of the quake, which struck at 12:49 (0949 GMT) was in the area of Silivri, some 80 km (50 miles) to the west of Istanbul. It was at a depth of 6.92 km (4.3 miles), AFAD said.

Broadcaster TGRT reported that one person had been injured as a result of jumping off a balcony during the quake, which occurred during a public holiday in Turkey.

AFAD warned people in the region against entering damaged buildings.

The German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) said the earthquake had a magnitude 6.02. It was at a depth of 10 km (6.21 miles) GFZ said.

(Reuters)

Tornadoes ripped across a wide swath of central and southern United States on Wednesday, destroying homes and businesses and bringing down power lines and trees.

The National Weather Service said there had been at least 15 reports of tornadoes in at least four states by late Wednesday.

Eight people have been injured across Kentucky and Arkansas, including one critically injured in Kentucky’s Ballard County, local officials said.

Late Wednesday, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency across the state due to the storms, which also brought hail and torrential rain, Reuters reported.

The NWS said millions of people were under alerts for tornadoes and flash floods and that dangers would continue into early Thursday.

Violent storms are forecast to ravage the country for several days, the NWS said, with Wednesday just “the beginning of a multi-day catastrophic and potentially historic heavy rainfall event.”

“The word for tonight is ‘chaotic’,” said Scott Kleebauer, a NWS meteorologist. “This is a large expanse of storms migrating slowly to the east, stretching from southeast Michigan down into southeastern Arkansas.”

The town of Nevada, Missouri, was hit by a tornado. Writing on social media, the state’s Emergency Management Agency said it caused “major damage to several businesses, power poles were snapped and several (empty) train cars were flipped onto their sides by the powerful storm!”

The NWS issued tornado and flash flood warnings for parts of Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Oklahoma.

It called the rain threats for Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee and Mississippi in the coming days a “generational flood event” with some locations forecast to see as much as 15 inches (38.1 cm) of rain by the weekend, which could cause rivers to burst their banks and cause “catastrophic river flooding.”

More than 400,000 customers had their power knocked out across the storm-hit area, according to PowerOutage.us.