Briefly

INDONESIA

Landslides, flash floods leave 18 dead

Indonesian rescuers recovered the bodies of at least 18 people who were swept away in flash floods or buried under mud and rocks that hit hilly villages on the country's main island of Java, officials said Tuesday. At least nine people were missing. Torrential rains on Monday caused rivers to burst their banks, tearing through nine villages in the Pekalongan regency of Central Java Province, said Bergas Catursasi Penanggungan, head of the Central Java disaster mitigation agency. The landslides also critically injured 10 individuals and partially damaged two houses.

UNITED NATIONS

Tourism recovers to pre-COVID levels

Global tourism fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2024, with 1.4 billion international tourist arrivals recorded worldwide due to "robust" demand from key markets, UN Tourism said on Monday. "A majority of destinations welcomed more international tourists in 2024 than they did before the pandemic, while visitor spending also continued to grow strongly," the Madrid-based body said in a statement. The number of international tourist arrivals last year was 11 percent higher than the number recorded in 2023, reaching the level seen in 2019, the year before the pandemic paralyzed travel.

TANZANIA

New Marburg virus outbreak confirmed

Tanzania's President Samia Suluhu Hassan confirmed on Monday that there was a new outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus, in the East African country. One "confirmed case of the Marburg virus marks the second outbreak" in Tanzania since 2023, the president told a news briefing. Last week, the World Health Organization said that a suspected Marburg outbreak in Tanzania had killed eight people, assessing the risk at the national level as "high". That report has not been confirmed by Tanzania.

Agencies Via Xinhua