分类： society

GALPATHA, Sri Lanka – A devastating late-night fire at an unregistered mental health nursing home in western Sri Lanka has left 13 people dead, triggering widespread public anger over systemic negligence and alleged abusive treatment of vulnerable residents, local officials and staff confirmed this week.

The blaze broke out around Wednesday night at the facility in Anguruwatota, a small town located 34 miles southeast of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo. At the time of the fire, 71 people were residing on the property – a gross overcapacity that government inspectors had previously flagged, according to national elder care authorities. After the fire, the site sat abandoned Friday, with charred personal items including eyeglass cases, prescription medication and recliners scattered across the blackened, gutted building shell. Footage captured by the Associated Press shows bodies recovered near the ruins, while local media footage documented local residents, firefighters and law enforcement working desperately to contain the fast-spreading inferno.

In an on-the-record interview Friday, a frontline staff member at the facility, Danuja Chathuranga, revealed a disturbing detail about the fatal incident: two residents were chained to fixed objects inside the building when the fire broke out. One of those chained residents died in the blaze, while the second was successfully untied and evacuated by staff, Chathuranga said. He defended the facility’s practice of restraining residents, arguing that the nursing home housed patients undergoing ongoing psychiatric treatment who were prone to wandering off.

“You only have to take your eyes away for one moment, they run away,” Chathuranga explained, recounting past incidents where residents had wandered into dangerous areas. “One of them had gone one day with the chair he was tied to and was found entangled in a barbed wire fence. Another with sores in their legs was brought back from a muddy field. Our intention was not to harm them. If they run away and fall into a pit, a well or get run over by a vehicle, we have to take that responsibility.”

Chathuranga told reporters the fire originated from an electrical short circuit in wiring connected to the facility’s water pump. The flames first ignited a nearby stack of mattresses and pillows, then spread across the overcrowded building at a speed that left many trapped. Neighbors, first responders and police managed to rescue 50 of the 71 residents; 10 were killed immediately by the fire, and three more later succumbed to their injuries in hospital. Surviving residents have since been transferred to a licensed, nearby care facility, and seven remain hospitalized for treatment of fire-related injuries.

The nursing home’s director has been arrested on charges of negligent homicide, and was ordered held in police custody for a week by a local court on Thursday as investigations proceed. Chathura Mihudum, director of Sri Lanka’s National Secretariat for Elders, told reporters the facility was never legally registered to operate as a nursing home, and government officials had already warned its management to comply with national care regulations on prior inspections. The property was only built and zoned to accommodate roughly 15 residents, yet 71 people were packed into the space at the time of the fire, Mihudum confirmed. Amala Rajapaksa, an administrator at the unregulated home, countered that staff had been in the process of completing official registration as requested by government regulators.

Every year between March and June, the rolling woodlands and wetland enclosures of the Crested Ibis Captive Breeding and Conservation Center in Yangxian County, Shaanxi Province, hum with new life. As of June 4, 2026, dozens of endangered crested ibises can be seen nesting, foraging, and raising newly hatched chicks across the center’s carefully constructed habitats, capping off decades of groundbreaking conservation work for one of the world’s most iconic threatened bird species.

Once on the very edge of extinction, the crested ibis has become a global benchmark for successful species preservation, and the Yangxian breeding center sits at the heart of that recovery effort. To give captive-bred birds the best chance of survival after release into the wild, center designers rejected traditional sterile captive enclosures in favor of carefully engineered environments that mimic the ibises’ natural native habitats. By recreating the combination of wetlands and forested areas the species relies on in the wild, and providing natural prey including wild loach, small fish, and freshwater shrimp, the center gives young ibises the space to develop critical survival skills that many captive-bred animals never learn: how to hunt for their own food, build sturdy nests, and navigate open spaces in flight.

To date, this approach has delivered extraordinary results: the Yangxian center alone has successfully bred nearly 1,000 crested ibis chicks, providing a steady stream of healthy birds for rewilding programs across the country. The impact of this work extends far beyond the boundaries of the Shaanxi breeding center, according to newly released data from the Shaanxi Provincial Forestry Bureau. By the end of 2025, the global crested ibis population had crossed the 12,000 individual threshold, a staggering increase from the mere seven wild birds discovered in Yangxian in the 1980s. What is more, the species’ native habitat range has expanded to more than 20,000 square kilometers, and wild crested ibis populations can now be found across 15 Chinese provincial-level regions, steadily reclaiming much of their historic natural range.

A dangerous, unusually intelligent wild bear remains on the loose in northeast Japan more than a day after it injured four local residents, with local authorities confirming that the animal outsmarted search teams by unlocking and opening a window to escape captivity.

Local law enforcement and wildlife management teams launched an urgent manhunt, or rather a bear-hunt, immediately after the series of attacks were reported. However, the animal’s unexpected problem-solving ability caught officials off guard: after tracking the bear to an enclosed space, search teams arrived to find it had freed itself by maneuvering a latched window open, leaving responders empty-handed.

The four injured victims have already received medical attention for their wounds, though local officials have not released detailed information on their current conditions as of the latest update. Authorities have issued a public safety warning to all residents in the affected region, urging people to avoid traveling alone in wooded or rural areas, keep all residential doors and windows securely locked, and contact emergency services immediately if they spot the bear rather than attempting to confront or capture it on their own.

Wildlife encounters have become increasingly common in parts of Japan in recent years, as expanding human development encroaches on traditional bear habitats, leading more animals to wander into populated areas in search of food. This particular incident has drawn extra attention due to the bear’s demonstrated higher-than-expected cognitive ability, which has made the search operation far more challenging for responders.

A remarkable and unnerving manhunt is underway in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, after a wild brown bear that injured four people pulled off a brazen escape from an electronics factory where authorities had cornered it — outsmarting multiple capture attempts through feats of clever problem-solving that have left local officials stunned.

The incident began on Tuesday night, when the young male bear first wandered into a local steel manufacturing facility. It attacked four workers before moving a short distance to a neighboring electronics factory, where authorities quickly moved in to contain the animal. What followed was a series of failed capture attempts that exposed just how adept the bear was at navigating human-made obstacles.

First, a team of wildlife officials attempted to tranquilize the bear with a dart, but the shot failed to immobilize the animal before it retreated into a hidden corner of the factory. Next, food traps baited with fresh fruit and honey were set — but the bear easily accessed and consumed the bait without triggering any of the trap mechanisms, city officials confirmed. Before its Wednesday escape, witnesses even spotted the animal using its front paws to twist open a factory faucet to drink water, an unexpected display of dexterity.

In a final attempt to coax the bear out into an open area where it could be safely captured, officials turned off all factory lights Wednesday night. Instead of stepping into the waiting traps, the bear made its move to freedom: investigators now confirm the bear slipped the latch on a closed window, pushed it open fully, and fled the facility under the cover of darkness.

Fukushima Mayor Yuki Baba described the animal as “extremely intelligent” in comments to Kyodo News Agency, a assessment backed up by the bear’s string of evasive maneuvers. Authorities had already authorized the use of lethal shooting to stop the bear if it posed an immediate public threat, but police opted not to take that step inside the factory due to the large quantity of flammable materials stored on site that could have ignited, creating a far larger hazard.

As of Thursday, local authorities have launched a large-scale search operation for the runaway bear, deploying drones to comb the surrounding wooded and residential areas for any sign of the animal. Out of an abundance of caution, all local schools switched their classes to remote-only learning for the day, while residents have been urged to stay indoors and avoid travel after dark.

Speaking to reporters after the escape, Mayor Baba expressed public accountability for the failed capture, saying “It’s not that we neglected our response efforts, but we are left with regret.”

This incident comes amid a growing public safety crisis across Japan, where encounters and attacks by wild bears have been rising steadily for years. Last year alone, the country recorded a record-high seven fatalities from bear attacks, as changing climate patterns and habitat loss push bears deeper into populated human areas in search of food. Historically, most bear encounters spike in autumn, when the animals fatten up before entering hibernation — this early-June incident has raised new concerns about shifting animal behavior that could put more communities at risk through the spring and summer months.