Australia’s New South Wales Sweats through Heatwave, Faces ‘Extreme’ Bushfire Risk

A view of the Anzac Bridge and Sydney Tower Eye at sunrise in Sydney, Australia, March 14, 2025. (Reuters)
A view of the Anzac Bridge and Sydney Tower Eye at sunrise in Sydney, Australia, March 14, 2025. (Reuters)
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Australia’s New South Wales Sweats through Heatwave, Faces ‘Extreme’ Bushfire Risk

A view of the Anzac Bridge and Sydney Tower Eye at sunrise in Sydney, Australia, March 14, 2025. (Reuters)
A view of the Anzac Bridge and Sydney Tower Eye at sunrise in Sydney, Australia, March 14, 2025. (Reuters)

Australia's New South Wales on Sunday sweated in a heat wave that raised the risk of bushfires and prompted authorities to issue a total fire ban for state capital Sydney.

New South Wales, coming to the end of a high-risk bushfire season that runs until the end of March, was a focus of a catastrophic 2019-2020 "Black Summer" of wildfires that destroyed an area the size of Turkey and killed 33 people.

On Sunday, the nation's weather forecaster said temperatures would be up to 12 degrees Celsius (21.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above average in some areas of the state, with temperatures in Sydney, Australia's most populous city, set to hit 37C (98.6F).

At Sydney Airport, the temperature was already 29.3C (84.7 F) at 9:30 a.m. local time, more than three degrees above the March mean maximum temperature, according to forecaster data.

Gusty winds, "hot conditions and low relative humidity will result in extreme fire danger over the greater Sydney region," the forecaster said on its website.

The state's Rural Fire Service said on X that a total fire ban was in place for large swaths of the state including Sydney due to the forecast of "hot, dry and windy conditions".

In neighboring Victoria state, a home was destroyed in a bushfire on the outskirts of Melbourne that was being battled by around 200 firefighters, Country Fire Authority official Bernard Barbetti told the Australian Broadcasting Corp on Sunday.

Climate change is causing extreme heat and fire weather to become more common in Australia, a bushfire-prone country of around 27 million, the country's science agency said last year.



Remains of 5,000-year-old Noblewoman Found in Peru Dig

An ancient artifact found in a recently discovered burial site at the Aspero archaeological complex, belonging to the Caral civilization, during a press presentation at the Ministry of Culture in Lima on April 24, 2025. ERNESTO BENAVIDES / AFP
An ancient artifact found in a recently discovered burial site at the Aspero archaeological complex, belonging to the Caral civilization, during a press presentation at the Ministry of Culture in Lima on April 24, 2025. ERNESTO BENAVIDES / AFP
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Remains of 5,000-year-old Noblewoman Found in Peru Dig

An ancient artifact found in a recently discovered burial site at the Aspero archaeological complex, belonging to the Caral civilization, during a press presentation at the Ministry of Culture in Lima on April 24, 2025. ERNESTO BENAVIDES / AFP
An ancient artifact found in a recently discovered burial site at the Aspero archaeological complex, belonging to the Caral civilization, during a press presentation at the Ministry of Culture in Lima on April 24, 2025. ERNESTO BENAVIDES / AFP

Archaeologists in Peru said Thursday they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas.

"What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman," archaeologist David Palomino told AFP.

The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for over 30 years until becoming an archaeological site in the 1990s.

Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000 years BC, contained skin, part of the nails and hair and was wrapped in a shroud made of several layers of fabric and a mantle of macaw feathers.

Macaws are colorful birds that belong to the parrot family.

The woman's funerary trousseau, which was presented to reporters at the culture ministry, included a toucan's beak, a stone bowl and a straw basket.

Preliminary analyses indicate that the remains found in December belong to a woman between 20 and 35 years old who was 1.5 meters (5 feet) tall, and wearing a headdress that represented her elevated social status.

Palomino told reporters the find showed that while "it was generally thought that rulers were men, or that they had more prominent roles in society" women had "played a very important role in the Caral civilization."

Caral society developed between 3000 and 1800 BC, around the same time as other great cultures in Mesopotamia, Egypt and China.

The city is situated in the fertile Supe valley, around 180 kilometers (113 miles) north of Lima and 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Pacific Ocean.

It was declared a UN World Heritage Site in 2009.