New Delhi was shrouded in a thick toxic haze Friday after a night of frenzied Diwali fireworks sent the air quality plummeting despite a ban on sale of fireworks aimed at thwarting a repeat of an 'airpocalypse'.

India's Supreme Court had banned the sale of firecrackers ahead of the Hindu festival of lights to prevent a repeat of last year's post-Diwali air pollution crises that left Delhi's 20 million residents gasping for weeks. 

As Hindus across India celebrate Diwali this week, scientists fear a ban on firecrackers and other emergency anti-pollution measures deployed by authorities may not be enough to prevent a repeat of last year's "airpocalypse" in Delhi.

The world's first floating wind farm started operations off the coast of Scotland on Wednesday, opening up the possibility of turbines at sea depths that would avoid spoiling views from the shore.

Sun-choking debris cast off by volcanoes more than 2,000 years ago starved headwaters feeding the Nile river and hastened the downfall of ancient Egypt's last kingdom, researchers said Tuesday.

Some 216,000 homes and businesses were still without electricity and 20,000 without running water in Ireland on Tuesday, the day after Storm Ophelia hit the country, claiming three lives.

Large numbers of hungry, aggressive bears are approaching humans and have killed two people in Russia's far east due to depleting food sources, a forestry worker told AFP Monday. 

Forestry authorities on Sakhalin island last week said 83 bears had to be shot dead because they were hostile, a figure that has nearly tripled from last year.

Ireland has ordered all schools to close Monday as the country braces for an "unprecedented storm" with the arrival of Ophelia, the largest hurricane ever recorded so far east in the Atlantic Ocean.

At least 27 people have died in fires which have ravaged forests in northern and central Portugal over the past 24 hours, rescuers said Monday, as three people were killed in Spain in blazes sparked by arsonists and fanned by Hurricane Ophelia.

In Portugal, Prime Minister Antonio Costa declared a state of emergency as more than 5,800 firefighters fought some 30 major fires still raging Monday.

Vietnam braced Monday for fresh storms as the official death toll from last week's floods and landslides rose to 72.

Hurricane Ophelia moved eastward over the mid-Atlantic Friday as a category two storm packing winds gusting at up to 105 miles (165 kilometers) per hour en route for the Azores.