At least 32 miners killed in incident in Lualaba Province, Democratic Republic of Congo.

At least 32 people have died, with some sources giving a larger number of 49, following the collapse of a makeshift bridge at a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The incident happened at the Kalando Cobalt Mine in Lualaba Province, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Saturday 15 November 2025, following an incursion at the mine by wildcat miners. The mine was closed at the time following heavy rains, which had led to concerns about the danger of landslides, but like many mines in the area is prone to incursions by informal miners, who take advantage of any suspension of regular activities. 

On this occasion the miners had entered the mine via bridge over a flooded trench to enter the site. However, soldiers who had been deployed to guard the mine fired upon these miners, injuring two and causing a panic which led to a large number of people trying to cross the bridge at once. While this was happening one of the walls of the open pit mine collapsed, with the subsequent landslide hitting the bridge.

The moment a landslide hit a bridge covered at a mine in Lualaba Province, Democratic Republic of Congo. AlJazeera. 

Informal artisanal mining is common in many parts of Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, which like may other countries has granted concessions to mining companies in areas where small-scale artisanal mining has traditionally helped to supplement the incomes of subsistence farmers. However, little of the money from such projects tends to reach local communities, which often leads to ill feeling and attempts to continue mining clandestinely, often at night or under other unfavourable conditions, which can put the miners at greater risk.

Artisanal miners at the Kalando site that until 2018, they had been free to operate as they pleased, but since that time the site had been taken over by a company with links to the family of President Felix Tshisekedi, as well as Chinese business interests. The Congolese Government claims that it has tried to exclude untrained miners from the site precisely because it feared an incident of this type.

Cobalt is a critical component of lithium batteries, which are used in technologies such as mobile phones and electric cars. The Democratic Republic of Congo is the world's largest producer of cobalt, but the industry is notoriously unregulated, with repeated reports of widespread forced labour, often of children, of workers being exposed to hazardous chemicals, and environmental destruction. Most of the extracted cobalt is exported to China, where it is used to manufacture electrical goods. 

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Assessing the impact of a Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus upon the Elephant Seal population of South Georgia.

The Southern Elephant Seal, Mirounga leonina, is the largest species of Pinniped (the group which includes Seals, Sea Lions, and Walruses) and an important predator in the circumpolar Southern Ocean. They breed annually, coming ashore on Sub-Antarctic islands in the southern summer. The males emerge first, carving out territories in bouts of competitive fighting, which they then defend for the rest of the season. The pregnant females emerge later, settling in the territories of one of the males, to form harems, groups of females defended by a male. Here they give birth, wean their cub, and finally, at the end of the season, come into oestrus, allowing the male to mate with them before they return to the sea.

Elephant Seals on a beach on South Georgia Island. George Lemann/South Georgia Museum.

There are four genetically distinct populations of Southern Elephant Seals, the  Peninsula Valdés Population, which breeds on the Argentinian coast, the South Georgia Population, which breeds on the islands of the South Atlantic, including South Georgia, South Sandwich Island, and the Falkland Islands, the Macquarie Population, which breeds on the Islands of the South Pacific, and the Heard and Kerguelen Population, which breeds on the islands of the southern Indian Ocean, including the Crozet and Prince Edward archipelagos. Of these populations, the South Georgia Population is thought to be the largest, containing about 54% of the global population.

Because Southern Elephant Seals live in remote locations, data on their populations is difficult to gather, making it difficult to compare populations directly. The Peninsula Valdés Population, possibly the easiest to monitor, is known to have grown by between 1 and 3.4% each year for the past five decades. The South Georgia Population is thought to be stable. The Macquarie Population is thought to have shrunk throughout the twentieth century, going through a slight recovery in the early twenty first century, before starting to shrink again more recently. In the Indian Ocean, the sub-population on Marion Island, in the Prince Edward Archipelago, has declined by 83% since 1950, which represents an annual decline of 5.8%, the Îles Crozet sub-population shrank by 5.4% per year between 1970 and 1990, but more recently have been growing at about 5.1, while the Îles Kerguelen sub-population shrank by 47% between 1952 and 1987, then rose by almost 1% per year between 1987 and 2009, and has been rising at about 1.6% annually more recently.

Influenza A Viruses are Negative-strand RNA Viruses which circulate naturally in both Animal and Human populations, causing seasonal flu. Occasionally a particularly more virulent strains of Influenza A appear, causing large mortality rates among affected species, such as the notorious Spanish Flu, which may have killed over 100 million people between 1918 and 1920. Avian Influenza is a form of Influenza A Virus which first appeared on poultry farms in China in late 2003, rapidly spreading to other farms across East Asia during 2004, causing mass deaths of poultry everywhere it reached. In 2005 it caused a mass death of wild Birds on Qinghai Lake in central China, a lake which is used as a stopover for many migratory Bird species. Later that year cases began to appear in Europe and Africa. While mainly affecting Birds, Avian Influenza can infect Mammals, including Humans, however, although it can be fatal, it seldom spreads between members of most Mammal species, limiting the size of any outbreaks. However, some Mammals appear to be more vulnerable than others with the Virus spreading without the need for further contact with Birds. Such vulnerable Mammals include Cows and Seals.

Negative stained transmission electron micrograph showing  recreated 1918 influenza Virions that were collected from supernatants of 1918-infected Madin-Darby Canine Kidney cells cultures 18 hours after infection. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention/Wikimedia Commons.

Since this time several strains of Avian Influenza have appeared, which have been loosely divided into Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Viruses, which typically kill more than 75%  of the Birds in any infected population, and Low Pathogenic Avian Influenza Viruses, which typically kill less than 75%. The 2.3.4.4b clade is a Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus which first appeared in Europe in 2020, and has subsequently spread to North and South America, where it caused mass deaths among Seabirds and Marine Mammals in 2022. In September 2023, a Brown Skua, Stercorarius antarcticus, on Bird Island, South Georgia, was found to have died as a result of infection with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus, with the infection subsequently spreading to Gentoo Penguins, Pygoscelis papua, Snowy Albatrosses, Diomedea exulans,Antarctic Fur Seals, Arctocephalus gazella, and Southern Elephant Seals. In 2024, the Virus was also confirmed on Îles Crozet and Îles Kerguelen in the southern Indian Ocean.

During the 2023/4 breeding season, Southern Elephant Seals on South Georgia were monitored for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus via sample collecting at sites which could be accessed from the sea, in combination with observations made from research vessels and cruise ships, suggested that the colony could have lost as many as 97% of its pups.

In a paper published in the journal Communications Biology on 13 November 2025, Connor. Bamford, Nathan Fenney, Jamie Coleman, Cameron Fox-Clarke, and John Dickens of the British Antarctic Survey, Mike Fedak of the Sea Mammal Research Unit at University of St Andrews, Peter Fretwell, also of the British Antarctic Survey, Luis Hückstädt of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter, and Phil Hollyman, again of the British Antarctic Survey, and of the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University, present a study of the three largest Southern Elephant Seal numbers on South Georgia, based upon photographic data collected by an uncrewed aerial vehicle.

In October 2024, 4373 female Southern Elephant Seals were observed at St Andrews Bay, whereas 6305 were recorded in October 2022. At Hound Bay, 1154 females were observed in 2024, compared to 1901 in 2022. This represents a 47% decline in the number of breeding females at these two sights between 2022 and 2024, and a 33.7% decline compared the long term population average (taken between 1958 and 2022). Bamford et al. extrapolate for that this would represent in a total fall in the number of breeding females across South Georgia of about 55 000.

Locations of the largest breeding colonies of Southern Elephant Seals, Mirounga leonina, on South Georgia. Sites of the three largest breeding colony beaches of Southern Elephant Seals, Mirounga leonina, on South Georgia (by total number of breeding females from the 1995 census where aerial imagery was collected in 2022 and 2024, Bamford et al. (2025).

Bamford et al. note that there are gaps in our knowledge of Elephant Seal breeding, which affect how their data should be interpreted. It is possible that the reduction in the number of breeding females represents a direct measure of the rate of adult mortality suffered by Southern Elephant Seals on South Georgia as a result of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus infection. However, female Seals whose pups die tend to leave the breeding beaches fairly quickly, and it is therefore possible that many Seals left beaches in 2023 before coming into oestrus and mating, and therefore did not return in 2024 to raise pups. It is unclear how female Elephant Seals return to the breeding population after losing a pup, although it seems unlikely that they simply stop breeding altogether. 

Another potential disruption to Elephant Seal breeding behaviour comes from sea ice. In 2023 sea ice in the Southern Atlantic cover was the lowest ever recorded at that time (2024 subsequently produced even lower ice levels). This potentially had an impact on the Elephant Seals, as sea ice has a stabilising effect on the Southern Ocean, tending to suppress the formation of storms, as well has having an impact on the ecology of many prey species. However, Bamford et al. do not believe that this is likely to have caused a sufficient disruption to the Seals to explain the observed population drop, given the wide area over which they typically forage.

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The Leonid Meteor Shower.

Each year between 6 and 30 November (approximately) the the Earth encounters the Leonid Meteors, with peak activity this year expected before dawn on Monday 17 November. Unlike most such showers, which are essentially composed of dust particles, the Leonids comprise particles of up to 8 mm across and up to 85 g in mass, leading to some spectacular fireballs, and each year the shower is thought to deposit 12-13 tonnes of material on the Earth. The Leonid Meteor Shower is so called because the meteors they appear to originate in the constellation of Leo. (Note a meteor is a 'shooting star', a piece of material visibly burning up in the atmosphere and detectable via the light it produces when doing this; a meteorite is a piece of rock that has fallen from the sky and which a geologist can physically hold; and an asteroid is a chunk of rock in orbit about the Sun, to small to be regarded as a planet.

The radiant point of the Leonid Meteor Shower. EarthSky.

The Leonid Meteors are thought to originate from the tail of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, which orbits the Sun every 33 years, on an orbit that brings it slightly within the orbit of the Earth then out to slightly beyond the orbit of Uranus. Comets are composed largely of ice (mostly water and carbon dioxide), and when they fall into the inner Solar System the outer layers of this boil away, forming a visible tail (which always points away from the Sun, not in the direction the comet is coming from, as our Earth-bound experience would lead us to expect). Particles of rock and dust from within the comet are freed by this melting (strictly sublimation) of the comet into the tail and continue to orbit in the same path as the comet, falling behind over time. 

The orbit of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, and its position on 17 November 2025. JPL Small Body Database.

The material in the meteor shower is densest close behind the comet, and, since Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle has a 33 year orbit, the Leonid Meteor Shower has a 33-year cycle, with a particularly spectacular display every thirty-third year, then a gradual decline in meteor number till the end of the cycle. The last such peak year was in 1998.

Image of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle taken on 31 January 1998, 60 second exposure. Martin Mobberley.

Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle was discovered in December 1865 by German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel, and independently in January 1866 by the American Horace Parnell Tuttle. The designation 55/P implies that it is a Periodic Comet (comet with an orbital period of less than 200 years), and that it was the 55th such body discovered. As a Comet with a Period of less than 200 years and more than 20 years it is also regarded as a Halley-type Comet.

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Body of missing West Virginia miner found.

The body of a West Virginia miner went missing in a flood at coal mine on Saturday 8 November 2025 has been recovered, according to rescue workers. Steve Lipscomb, 42, a foreman at the Rolling Thunder Mine in Nicholas County was last seen helping workers to escape following an inrush at the mine, about a kilometre below ground. Since this time rescue workers have been working round the clock, pumping an average of 1.4 million litres out of the mine every hour, but on several occasions encountering new packages of water, hampering efforts to reach the area where Lipscomb went missing. His body was finally recovered on Thursday 13 November.

The Rolling Thunder Mine in Nicholas County, West Virginia.  Sean McCallister/AP.

Floods and inrushes typically occur when miners accidentally break through into pockets of water and gas trapped within rocks. Since such buried waters are often under high pressure due to the weight of rocks above them, they tend to escape into the mine rapidly, and on occasion explosively, leading to a highly dangerous situation in which miners are often rapidly overwhelmed. Such inrushes can also occur when miners encounter flooded disused mineworkings, a danger in areas where mining has occurred for a long time but good records have not been kept.

The Rolling Thunder Mine, which is operated by Tennessee-based Alpha Metallurgical Resources, is located close to a former coal mine, which was in operation in the 1930s and 40s, and targets the Eagle Coal Seam, which runs below the drainage of Twenty Mile Creek, following the path of this waterway. Despite this, it is unclear what steps the mine's owners took to identify any hydrological risks at the site. A report produced by consulting firm Marshall Miller & Associates in February 2024 suggested that the area had been sufficiently explored in the past for there to be 'no significant hydrologic concerns'. However, this report is primarily economic in focus, and also reports that hydrologic testing should be undertaken as part of the mine permitting process.

The Rolling Thunder Mine is one of eleven deep pit mines operated by Alpha Metallurgical Resources in West Virginia. The company also operated four surface mines in the state, and three underground mines and one surface mine in Virginia. This is the third death at an Alpha Metallurgical Resources facility in West Virginia this year, with previous incidents having occurred at the Marfork Coal Processing Facility and the Black Eagle Mine. 

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Dyckia semperflorens: A new species of Bromeliad from the cold region of Rio Grande do Sul, southern Brazil.

Bromeliads are herbaceous Monocotyledons native to the Americas (with a single species known from West Africa) and related to the Sedges and Grasses. They have a distinctive rosette shape, with blade-like leaves spiraling out from a central point. In some cases the centre of this rosette forms a water reservoir held in place by tightly overlapping leaf-bases, which can contain entire miniature ecosystems. Many Bromeliads are epiphytes, living on the branches of trees, particularly in rainforests, but others live on the ground and many are found in deserts.

The genus Dyckia contains 188 recognised species of Bromeliads, making it one of the most specious genera within the group. The majority of these are found in arid areas of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Brazil, with about two thirds of all species being found in Brazil. Species of Dyckia tend to have spiny leaves and a succulent form, and often grow on thin soils or directly on rock. They also tend to be highly endemic, with most species having a limited geographical range, and several species known only from a single location.

In a paper published in the Nordic Journal of Botany on 17 October 2025, Henrique Mallmann Büneker and Jorge Ernesto de Araujo Mariath of the Laboratório de Anatomia Vegetal and Programa de Pós-graduação em Botânica at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, describe a new species of Dyckia from an escarpment beside the Rio dos Touros in the municipality if Bom Jesus in Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil.

The new species is named Dyckia semperflorens, where 'semperflorens', means 'continuously flowering'; when the species was first observed in 2017 a live specimen was collected and brought to the Planeta Bromélia nursery in Porto Alegre, where it has remained in bloom ever since. Specimens of Dyckia semperflorens reach 65-96 cm in height, and have a rosette diameter of 38-65 cm. Leaves are 47-107 cm in length, with the inner leaves being semi-erect, while the outer ones are more relaxed, all have an elongate triangular shape with a waxy surface and sparse spines on the edges. Flowers are born on an erect or semi-erect peduncle, 20-36 cm in length. Flowers are tubular and greenish or reddish, flowers on the base of the peduncle are larger than those towards the tip.

Dyckia semperflorens.  (A) Habitat, (B) clumping habit, (C) flowering plant habit, (D) rosette, (E) detail of the inflorescence. Henrique Mallmann Büneker in Büneker & Mariath (2025).

Dyckia semperflorens is known from a single location, on a rocky escarpment along the banks of the Touros River, 1054 m above sealevel, in the municipality of Bom Jesus, Rio Grande do Sul State, in southern Brazil. The local environment is dominated by grassland, with patches of  Araucaria forest. The climate here is temperate, with frost and snowfall in the winter. 

The only known population of Dyckia semperflorens grows in an area currently under pressure from cattle grazing and frequent anthropogenic fires, which are used for grassland management in the region. However, there are other similar areas in the region which could potentially support the species, and which have not been explored yet, so Büneker and Mariath refrain from assigning a conservation status to the species at this time.

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