عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Varieties

Ukrainian Farmer Comes up with Novel Way to Demine His Fields

A remote controlled demining machine, created by local farmer Oleksandr Kryvtsov with his tractor and armored plates from destroyed Russian military vehicles, is seen during demining of an agricultural field, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the village of Hrakove, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine April 26, 2023. (Reuters)
A remote controlled demining machine, created by local farmer Oleksandr Kryvtsov with his tractor and armored plates from destroyed Russian military vehicles, is seen during demining of an agricultural field, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the village of Hrakove, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine April 26, 2023. (Reuters)
TT
TT

Ukrainian Farmer Comes up with Novel Way to Demine His Fields

A remote controlled demining machine, created by local farmer Oleksandr Kryvtsov with his tractor and armored plates from destroyed Russian military vehicles, is seen during demining of an agricultural field, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the village of Hrakove, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine April 26, 2023. (Reuters)
A remote controlled demining machine, created by local farmer Oleksandr Kryvtsov with his tractor and armored plates from destroyed Russian military vehicles, is seen during demining of an agricultural field, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the village of Hrakove, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine April 26, 2023. (Reuters)

A Ukrainian farmer has come up with a novel way to remove mines left in his fields after Russia's invasion -- he's kitted out his tractor with protective panels stripped from Russian tanks and operates it by remote control.

After Russian forces were driven back from parts of eastern Ukraine by a Ukrainian counteroffensive last year, mines remained in many fields, making it perilous for farmers to sow grain for the next harvest.

Fields around the village of Hrakove was no exception. Oleksandr Kryvtsov, a general manager at his agricultural company, decided he couldn't wait for help from overworked official deminers to clear his field.

Instead, he designed a remote-controlled tractor that could withstand blasts. Using armor from damaged Russian military vehicles to protect the body of his tractor, he bought a system that would enable one of his team to operate the tractor remotely from a digger's bucket suspended in the air nearby.

"We started doing this just because the crop-sowing time has come and we can’t do anything because the rescue services are very busy," Kryvtsov told Reuters.

"We ran over an anti-tank mine. The protection got blown out (but) the tractor is safe," he said." Everyone's alive and safe. The equipment was restored and repaired."

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said last week about 30% of Ukrainian territory had been mined by Russians and that the government was focused on de-mining agricultural land as quickly as possible.

"We have no time to demine the fields. The amount of work is enormous," said Serhii Dudak, head of a demining unit overseeing the tractor's work. "It would take years to demine this particular field by hand and to guarantee that there are no mines here."

Most Viewed

 
 
Varieties

Climate Change Causing More Change in Rainfall, Fiercer Typhoons, Scientists Say 

People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
TT
TT

Climate Change Causing More Change in Rainfall, Fiercer Typhoons, Scientists Say 

People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)

Climate change is driving changes in rainfall patterns across the world, scientists said in a paper published on Friday, which could also be intensifying typhoons and other tropical storms.

Taiwan, the Philippines and then China were lashed by the year's most powerful typhoon this week, with schools, businesses and financial markets shut as wind speeds surged up to 227 kph (141 mph). On China's eastern coast, hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated ahead of landfall on Thursday.

Stronger tropical storms are part of a wider phenomenon of weather extremes driven by higher temperatures, scientists say.

Researchers led by Zhang Wenxia at the China Academy of Sciences studied historical meteorological data and found about 75% of the world's land area had seen a rise in "precipitation variability" or wider swings between wet and dry weather.

Warming temperatures have enhanced the ability of the atmosphere to hold moisture, which is causing wider fluctuations in rainfall, the researchers said in a paper published by the Science journal.

"(Variability) has increased in most places, including Australia, which means rainier rain periods and drier dry periods," said Steven Sherwood, a scientist at the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales, who was not involved in the study.

"This is going to increase as global warming continues, enhancing the chances of droughts and/or floods."

FEWER, BUT MORE INTENSE, STORMS

Scientists believe that climate change is also reshaping the behavior of tropical storms, including typhoons, making them less frequent but more powerful.

"I believe higher water vapor in the atmosphere is the ultimate cause of all of these tendencies toward more extreme hydrologic phenomena," Sherwood told Reuters.

Typhoon Gaemi, which first made landfall in Taiwan on Wednesday, was the strongest to hit the island in eight years.

While it is difficult to attribute individual weather events to climate change, models predict that global warming makes typhoons stronger, said Sachie Kanada, a researcher at Japan's Nagoya University.

"In general, warmer sea surface temperature is a favorable condition for tropical cyclone development," she said.

In its "blue paper" on climate change published this month, China said the number of typhoons in the Northwest Pacific and South China Sea had declined significantly since the 1990s, but they were getting stronger.

Taiwan also said in its climate change report published in May that climate change was likely to reduce the overall number of typhoons in the region while making each one more intense.

The decrease in the number of typhoons is due to the uneven pattern of ocean warming, with temperatures rising faster in the western Pacific than the east, said Feng Xiangbo, a tropical cyclone research scientist at the University of Reading.

Water vapor capacity in the lower atmosphere is expected to rise by 7% for each 1 degree Celsius increase in temperatures, with tropical cyclone rainfall in the United States surging by as much as 40% for each single degree rise, he said.