LONDON (Reuters) -- Britain’s National Air Traffic Service (NATS) had to restrict the flow of aircraft on Monday due to a technical issue, it said, with passengers stuck in planes on the tarmac and airlines and airports warning of delays and cancellations across Europe.Irish air traffic control provider AirNav Ireland said the issue, which has struck during a public holiday in parts of Britain, was resulting in “significant delays for flights across Europe that are travelling to, from or through UK airspace”.A spokesperson for London Heathrow, the busiest hub in western Europe, said the airport was working with NATS and other airport partners to minimize the impact on passengers, while Gatwick, south of London, said cancellations were likely.Earlier Scottish airline Loganair said on social media site X, previously known as Twitter, that there had been a network-wide failure of UK air traffic control computer systems.British Airways said it was working closely with NATS to understand the impact, while other airlines including Ryanair said some flights to and from the UK on Monday would be delayed or cancelled.

 

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CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Eight U.S. Marines remained in a hospital in the Australian north coast city of Darwin on Monday after they were injured in a fiery crash of a tiltrotor aircraft that killed three of their colleagues on an island.All 20 survivors were flown from Melville Island 80 kilometers (50 miles) south to Darwin within hours of the Marine V-22 Osprey crashing at 9:30 a.m. Sunday during a multinational training exercise, Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said.All were taken to the Royal Darwin Hospital, and 12 had been discharged by Monday, she said.The first five Marines to arrive at the city’s main hospital were critically injured and one underwent emergency surgery.Fyles said she would not detail the conditions of eight who remained in the hospital out of respect for them and their families. 

 

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BEIJING (Reuters) -- Chinese weather forecasters on Monday warned several provinces to expect torrential rain and flash floods over the next two days as unrelenting downpours wreak havoc on the country. More than three thousand people were evacuated in northwestern Hunan province over the weekend as heavy rain was unleashed on Sangzhi, Shimen and Yongshun counties, and Zhangjiajie City, according to state media. Sangzhi recorded the heaviest rainfall this year, with maximum precipitation reaching 256 mm (10.07 inches) overnight from Saturday to Sunday, according to state broadcaster China Central Television. It was the most extensive and widespread rain in Sangzhi since 1998, CCTV said. China has been gripped by weeks of rains and floods amid an unusually wet summer. In late July, storms from Typhoon Dokusri caused record rains to hit China in over a decade, with Beijing experiencing its heaviest rainfall in 140 years.

 

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TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japan said on Monday it had received many “extremely regrettable” harassment phone calls, likely from China, after the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific. The Chinese embassy in Tokyo said it too had been receiving nuisance calls, from Japan. Japan started the water discharge on Thursday in a key step towards decommissioning the Fukushima plant, which suffered triple meltdowns after being hit by a tsunami in 2011 in the world’s worst nuclear plant disaster since Chernobyl 25 years earlier. Such calls prompted vice foreign minister Masataka Okano to summon the Chinese ambassador, Japan’s foreign ministry said. But the Chinese embassy in Tokyo released a statement saying it had lodged stern representations with Japan about the Chinese embassy and consulates in Japan receiving “a large number of nuisance calls from Japan”. The calls have caused “serious interference in the normal operation of the embassy and consulates”, ambassador Wu Jianghao said, according to an embassy statement.

 

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LOCH NESS, Scotland (Reuters) -- Hundreds of hopeful volunteers joined a two-day hunt for Scotland’s fabled Loch Ness monster on Saturday and Sunday, in what organizers described as the biggest search for the elusive “Nessie” in more than 50 years. The Loch Ness Centre, which partnered with voluntary research team Loch Ness Exploration to organize “The Quest”, said they would be using surveying equipment that had not previously been tried at the loch, including thermal drones. Volunteers from around the world were allocated locations around the 23-mile (37-km) long lake from which to monitor for any signs of Nessie, while others took to boats. A hydrophone was also used to detect acoustic signals under the water. The first written record of a monster relates to the Irish monk St Columba, who is said to have banished a “water beast” to the depths of the River Ness in the 6th century. The most famous picture of Nessie, from 1934, showed a head on a long neck emerging from the water, but 60 years later it was revealed to have been a hoax that used a sea monster model attached to a toy submarine. Countless unsuccessful attempts to track down the monster have been made in the years since.