‘How many hours has it been?’
For days after a deadly earthquake left their village in rubble, the people of Douar Tnirt, a remote village in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, were left alone to dig out and bury victims. Officials and emergency responders were nowhere in sight.
By the time responders arrived, late yesterday afternoon, bringing with them a human chain of volunteers in fluorescent vests and a trained dog to sniff out bodies, villagers had already spent the past three days rescuing — and burying — the people they loved.
Some were furious, pointing at the commercial flights others had taken to assist in the recovery, long before officials arrived. “People came from all over — we buried people, we rescued people,” Omar Ouchahed, a local resident, screamed. “Say the truth: How many hours has it been?”
Official response: The government in Morocco has pushed back on the criticism, saying that the response to the earthquake had been robust, but some residents desperate for basic supplies say they feel abandoned.
Hundreds reported dead in flooding in Libya
Deadly floods swept through northeastern Libya over the weekend, killing more than 300 people and leaving as many as 6,000 missing in the eastern port city of Derna. The floods were apparently caused by the collapse of dams, according to a spokesman for the Libyan National Army that controls eastern Libya.
Heavy rainfall over the weekend in the country’s northeast swelled waters past riverbanks, and officials said the force of the floodwaters swept away hundreds of homes and washed away roads. Stranded residents said they were trapped inside homes and cars, according to footage on social media.
The exact number killed was unclear because search efforts were still ongoing, a spokesman for authorities in that region said. The internationally recognized authority in western Libya, in Tripoli, said it had sent ambulances, rescue convoys and doctors to the area, and it declared three days of mourning for the victims of the flooding.
Context: Libya has been divided between two rival governments and prime ministers: an internationally recognized government based in Tripoli, and a separately administered region in the east.
Kim Jong-un to visit Russia on private train
The leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, will make a rare trip outside his home country, visiting Russia in the coming days to meet with Vladimir Putin, the country’s leader. North Korea could provide Russia with much-needed ammunition for the war in Ukraine. In return, North Korea is seeking food aid and some advanced technology.
Mode of transport: The Kim family has long preferred to travel on a massive bulletproof train that is so heavy it can barely reach 35 miles per hour.
For decades, physicists have searched for a “theory of everything” that would finally explain the physics that define the entire universe.
But, as Dennis Overbye, a science reporter for The Times, writes, a “theory of everything” still might not explain it all. The universe is so big that, even if we knew all of its rules, there would never be enough computing power to accurately track all of its particles — leaving many things about our future and our past a mystery.
Lives Lived
Ian Wilmut, the British scientist who led the team that cloned Dolly the sheep in the 1990s, has died at 79.
SPORTS NEWS
European transfers: The soccer moves you may have missed this summer.
Basketball World Cup: Germany triumphed, first against the U.S. and then, in the final, against Serbia, for the biggest win in the team’s history.
Evan Ferguson: A guest columnist, Alan Shearer, writes about the Irish soccer superstar.
Women’s soccer in Spain: After the resignation of the country’s soccer chief, recriminations, accusations and an inquiry remain.
ARTS AND IDEAS
What’s for dinner?
Figuring out nightly dinner is hard enough; in September, it can feel downright daunting. Emily Weinstein, the editor in chief of our food and cooking section, put together 100 recipes that can relieve some of the stress of mealtime.
All of them are relatively simple, and many take only 30 minutes to make. “I kept kids in mind when I picked these recipes, but the truth is that no matter how old you are, or where you are in life, September has a way of sweeping us all,” Emily writes.