A woman who suffered a bad back injury during a year-long Buddhist retreat took her own life because she could no longer live with the pain, an inquest has heard.

Wellness teacher Claire Rodway, 52, had been fit and active before she went to stay at the remote monastery.

The challenging retreat involved her performing 650 prostrations – a bowing motion that involves fully extending the body on the floor – every day.

It was said that this ritual ultimately left her in debilitating pain.

She also endured a disrupted sleep pattern as many teachings took place remotely from Nepal at 2am, an inquest into her death heard. 

After five months the former nurse left the Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery on the Holy Isle, an island off Scotland’s west coast.

Ms Rodway, from Christchurch, Dorset, was diagnosed with fibromyalgia a few months later, which caused her unbearable pain and meant she was unable to volunteer or work.

Ms Rodway was found drowned in the River Avon on October 2 2025. She had left notes for friends and family describing how the condition had ‘destroyed my life’.

Her family claimed the retreat put vulnerable people’s lives in danger as no risk assessments on participants’ health were carried out when they joined.

Senior Buddhist nun Elise Jacobsen, known as Lama Zangmo, told the Bournemouth inquest adjustments were made to address Ms Rodway’s back pain

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The inquest in Bournemouth heard Ms Rodway joined the religious refuge in October 2024.

Her close friend Rosemarie Roberts, who met Ms Rodway when they volunteered for a Buddhist centre in Scarborough, East Yorks, said she had warned her the intense retreat would be ‘very difficult and challenging’.

Ms Rodway said she was confident she could deal with the challenge, but later told Ms Roberts she regretted going to the Holy Isle.

During her stay, Ms Rodway wrote to Ms Roberts to say she was ‘feeling lost’, that her pain ‘was worse’.

As well as the prostrations the retreat also involved evenings spent in complete silence for several hours.

Senior Buddhist nun Elise Jacobsen, known as Lama Zangmo, told the Bournemouth inquest that adjustments were made to address Ms Rodway’s back pain.

She was given advice that the prostrations could be modified, such as to a kneeling or sitting position, but said Ms Rodway preferred to do the full-length pose.

She said Ms Rodway had completed 100,000 prostrations in five months, but others had taken years to do them, adding: ‘It’s not a numbers game’.

After leaving the retreat on February 16 2025, Ms Rodway stayed elsewhere on the island until April 2. She went to see her GP about the back pain two weeks later.

By June the pain was so debilitating she had to move in with her mother Christine and was then diagnosed with fibromyalgia on July 3.

Her doctor said she was really struggling with the pain. She was put on strong painkillers and antidepressants and given referrals to the mental health and pain management teams.

She was on a six-week waiting list for pain management when her family reported her missing on October 2 and her body was found on the same day.

Ms Rodway, from Christchurch, Dorset, was diagnosed with fibromyalgia a few months later, which caused her unbearable pain and meant she was unable to volunteer or work

A post-mortem examination confirmed the cause of death as drowning.

The inquest heard police officers searched her bedroom and found closed letters addressed to family and friends.

They read: ‘Fibromyalgia has destroyed my life. I have fought it and tried many things to improve it.

‘I have taken many medications to help but it just slowly robs me of more and more.

‘The pain is unbearable by the end of the day, it never goes away from first thing onwards. I feel I already have poor quality of life. I have nothing to give – I can’t volunteer or work.’

Ms Rodway’s family raised concerns about a lack of risk assessment and evaluation of potential participants at the retreat by medical professionals.

Ellen Robertson, counsel for the family, said: ‘It’s a remote island with no medical facilities available.

‘A great deal of people on the retreat will have taken vows of silence, people are undergoing a huge change in their environment.

‘These retreats will always, by their nature, involve a risk of attracting vulnerable people and make people more vulnerable when they are there.

‘The way in which this organisation is operating is not safe.

‘Lama Zangmo said there were no major risks. That as a belief is horrifying, that culture is one that puts people in danger.’

But Helen Richardson, a trustee of the ROKPA Trust, who ran the monastery, said they had a consistent high safety record for their longer retreats.

She said in over 30 years only 6 per cent of retreatants had left early and there were no known occasions of them leaving early due to physical complications relating to the ngondro procedure.

Assistant coroner Richard Middleton gave a conclusion of suicide and said he did not believe Ms Rodway’s death was preventable.

He said he was satisfied the monastery had taken appropriate action to address issues when they arose and doctors had made clinical decisions and appropriate referrals.

Mr Middleton said: ‘I do not believe I can establish a causal link between her time at the retreat and her death.

‘Ms Roberts gave evidence following her meeting with Ms Rodway in June 2025 she described how she had pain throughout her body and fear for the future as she knew it was getting worse and she would not be able to do things that gave her life meaning.

‘She also described the debilitating nature of her condition in notes of intent left immediately prior to her death.

‘Dr Mukherjee said it is difficult to diagnose what may trigger the onset of fibromyalgia.

‘It may not be a single event. It may be events over months or years. It may be possible to isolate a moment in time someone starts to suffer – for example Covid, menopause or the break up of a serious relationship.

‘It may be the boom and bust experience from some sort of strenuous task.

‘Ms Robertson suggested on behalf of the family the unearthing of trauma, the potential one is completing 650 prostrations a day for six months and a fairly disrupted sleep pattern, those three elements could have caused the onset.

‘He said he was unable to say but common sense will say it is possible those three elements could have worsened the fibromyalgia.’

But Mr Middleton said he would not make a preventing future deaths report as the trust had carried out investigations and reviews since Ms Rodway’s death which had ‘raised the bar’ for their rules, principles and standards.

By ZOE HARDY, HEALTH REPORTER

Published: 10:27 BST, 30 July 2026 | Updated: 11:07 BST, 30 July 2026

Reading books, walking and bike riding are among the secrets of a long and healthy life, say residents in the English neighbourhoods with the longest life expectancy.

But people in the worst place, Blackpool – where men die an average of 10 years earlier – bemoaned drug abuse, cheap booze and fast food, as well as poor housing.

In the areas where people lived longest, residents told the Daily Mail how there are more activities and facilities such as leisure centres and libraries to keep people active physically and mentally as they got older.

There were also better shops selling a good range of healthy food, as well as easy access to medical services and GP appointments.

Locals in the healthiest places praised green space, parks and countryside giving opportunities for exercise and spending time outdoors in pleasant environments.

Analysis by The King’s Fund published this week found the Lancashire seaside resort has the lowest life expectancy of anywhere in the country, at 73.7 years for men and 79.1 years for women.

The health and social care think tank’s study also found there was low life expectancy across the former industrial and urban areas of northern England – although life expectancy shot up in rural and more affluent parts of the North.

Meanwhile, in Hampshire’s prosperous Hart district – which has previously been voted the best place to live in a national survey – life expectancy averages 83.7 years for men and 86.2 years for women.

Kensington: In the London borough, women can expect to live even longer, averaging 87.1 years, while the figure is 82.2 for men

In Hart, life expectancy averages are 83.7 years for men and 86.2 years for women. Jane Nicholson, 60, said there were plenty of active spaces, a golf club, leisure centres – and great healthcare

In the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, women can expect to live even longer, averaging 87.1 years, while the figure is 82.2 for men.

Life expectancy is also very high in areas such as the Uttlesford district of rural Essex, where it averages 86.4 years for women.

Residents of Britain’s top borough for living a long life praised the area’s green spaces, places for walking and cycling – as well as good healthcare and opportunities for older people to keep active.

Hart, centred around the town of Fleet, has been ranked near the top of the Halifax Quality of Life Survey on several occasions, coming top in 2012 and third in 2020.

Much of the area remains rural – despite large-scale housebuilding – and facilities for sport and leisure have been rated ‘excellent’.

Residents of the district also reported higher than average levels of life satisfaction – 8.2 out of 10, compared to 7.8 for the UK in general. Employment levels were also significantly higher for Hart at 87.2 per cent, compared to 75 per cent for the rest of the country.

In data from the 2021 census, 54.8 per cent of people reported being in ‘very good health’, placing Hart in the top 20 per cent for local authority areas across the UK.

But the cost of buying a home in the district is 4.5 times that of Blackpool, with provisional Office for National Statistics data from May showing the average home in Hart cost £487,000, compared with £134,000 in Blackpool.

Adrian Mann, 79, moved to the Hart area from London 18 months ago. He said: ‘When we moved to Fleet, we really noticed the difference. 

‘There are always people in their 80s walking around the town centre. The cemetery is also full of people who have lived well into their 90s – a good age.

‘I think this is down to the clean air. There are also lots of walks, parks and also the pond. There are quite a lot of churches, the library as well – it has the facilities for older people.’

Mr Mann’s partner, who wished to remain anonymous, said: ‘I hadn’t been well before we moved here and then suddenly after living in the area, my symptoms completely went.

‘I put it down to the clean air. With the number of trees, it is basically the countryside. People are encouraged to get out and about in Fleet.

‘The medical care is good and there are a lot of organisations for older people which get them out of their houses.’

Retired solicitor Robert Cook, 79, and his wife Linda, 84, have lived in Fleet for 35 years during which they say it has undergone a huge population increase and independent retailers have closed – but it remains ‘very pleasant’.

Mr Cook said: ‘To stay healthy, we try to go out most days; we don’t stay at home watching the telly all day. We often go out to Waitrose, M&S and some of the other shops.

‘You see a lot of the older population around the town. People come to retire here. Hart in general is very pleasant.’

Mrs Cook added: ‘The healthcare in the area is excellent. There are a few practices in Fleet and you can get an appointment often on the same day or the following day.’

Charlotte Dando, 44, moved to Hart with her mother Christine Swain, 82.

She said: ‘I love living here. We’ve been here seven years, and we moved from Camberley. The schools are great. We are in walking distance from the town.

‘My mother moved here too and she lives in an annex in our garden. We are not surprised at all that people here live the longest in the UK. There’s lot going on – all the parks, there are also really good cycle paths. You can cycle down the canal. My husband cycles to work. There are just a lot of outdoorsy things on your doorstep.’

Blackpool: Analysis this week found the Lancashire seaside resort has the lowest life expectancy of anywhere in the country, at 73.7 years for men and 79.1 years for women

Retired solicitor Robert Cook, 79, and wife Linda, 84, have lived in Fleet for 35 years

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Residents in Blackpool bemoaned a ‘shocking’ string of social problems for contributing to low life expectancy

Hart, centred around the town of Fleet, has been ranked near the top of the Halifax Quality of Life Survey on several occasions, coming top in 2012 and third in 2020

Kensington: Residents of Britain’s top borough for living a long life praised the area’s green spaces, places for walking and cycling – as well as good healthcare and opportunities for older people to keep active

Mrs Dando said she believes diet and exercise help keep people healthy, with walking ‘massively important’. She also praised the availability of health food shops and places selling fresh and organic foods.

Jane Nicholson, 60, said: ‘Hart is a lovely area to live in and it’s been known to be so for quite a long time.

‘In terms of active spaces, there is North Hants golf club just down the road. There are also leisure centres. The healthcare is also great. I have always had a good experience.’

In contrast, residents in Blackpool bemoaned a ‘shocking’ string of social problems for contributing to low life expectancy.

Locals claimed to have seen drug addicts shooting up heroin in the street as well as drunk homeless people passed out.

The area also has a chronic shortage of NHS dentists – with one man admitting he had to pull out four of his own teeth.

Cheap fast food shops in the Lancashire tourist mecca sell burgers for £1, while pubs advertise pints of beer for as little as £1.69.

Expectant mother-of-one Tegan Milner, 23, said: ‘Some of the things you see are shocking.

‘There’s a lot of drunk people fighting in the street which has led to stabbings.

‘I don’t feel safe going out at night. I just go out in the day.’

The former hotel worker added: ‘You also see a lot of drug taking.

‘I saw one druggie take out a needle and inject himself with heroin right in the middle of the street in the middle of the day.

‘You don’t want to see that and I don’t want my kids around it.’

Plasterer Jamie Hornby, 54, who was out walking his dog Skye, said: ‘It doesn’t surprise me the life expectancy is so low here.

‘There’s a lot of drug taking and homeless people drunk in the street.

‘They have cleaned up the sea front but you see a lot of druggies around the public toilets.

‘And having lots of cheap fast food doesn’t help.

‘I keep fit taking the dog for a walk every day but a lot of people don’t look after themselves.’

Pensioner Colin Stead, 65, said: ‘You see a lot of poverty here but is pretty devastating.

‘A lot of people can’t afford to buy healthy food or they just buy cheap stuff.

‘Prices have gone up all the time and people have struggled to make ends meet.’

Retired John Ellis, 66, said: ‘Blackpool has a lot of problems.

‘There are a lot of cheap drugs and alcohol sold which doesn’t help. Some of the housing is very poor – it’s also very cheap.’

The health of the local population has not been helped by a dearth of NHS dentists.

Father-of-four Andrew Abernethy, 45, revealed he had been forced to pull out four of his own teeth.

He said: ‘I couldn’t get a dentist and so I just did it myself. I just got a pair of pliers and pulled them out.

‘Fortunately, I have a high threshold for pain but you don’t really want to have to do it yourself.

‘There’s a lot of problems in Blackpool – I blame the government for a lot of it.’

Some 250 miles south, people on the streets of Kensington espoused the benefits of exercise, keeping mentally active and a healthy diet.

Chrissie Fraser, 77, said: ‘I continue with my healthy outlook like going out walking, being careful with my diet, and I don’t really drink.

‘Probably the secret for everybody is if they go and read a few more books.

‘(For) every individual person, it’s nothing to do with access, it’s to do with what’s going on in your head.

‘You can now access the most fantastic information that I didn’t have as a girl. It was the library and my bicycle, I think the answer is a book and a bike.

‘It’s cheaper to eat well, isn’t it? I think it’s to do with who you think you are, I think it’s a bit more about the individual.’

She added: ‘I would be happier mentally [in the north] because it’s cheaper to live there. If I sold my flat in Kensington, I could buy something spectacular in Newcastle. So my mental well-being would probably be quite good, the only thing is I don’t want to go to Newcastle.’

Some people in Kensington were surprised northerners weren’t more healthy given their better access to outdoor space.

The health and social care think tank’s study also found there was low life expectancy across the former industrial and urban areas of northern England – although life expectancy shot up in rural and more affluent parts of the North. Pictured, Blackpool

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Marion Bennett, 70, said: ‘They should be healthier (in the North) shouldn’t they?’

She said she would have expected northerners to be healthier because of ‘better access’ to outdoor space.

Ms Bennett, who used to play netball, tennis and go skiing, added: ‘I do a tremendous amount of walking, I think it stands you in good stead for your later life.

‘Make sure you get your vegetables every day, I’m not so good at drinking water though.’

A healthy diet was important for Francis Ley, 79, who said: ‘I would recommend organic stuff, apples, pears, oranges, blueberries, potatoes, tomatoes, everything that’s organic.

‘Years ago, everything used to be organic before pesticides, and then that came but now they’re going back to organic.

‘But they’re having to pay more now because the earth now is saturated with the so-called chemicals. It’s fast living.

‘That’s why a lot of people are ill and sick because when you go into fast food restaurants, it’s all fried.’

But Lawrence Oji, 73, admitted he could improve his lifestyle as he ‘hardly exercises’ which he knows is ‘not good’.

He said: ‘Only my youngest daughter is particular about what she eats. She’s in a boarding school and she’s so concerned about it. She drinks up to two litres of water every day, I don’t.

‘I’m shocked to hear that people in London live longer because (in the North) you get less pollution, you get more greenery, you get more trees and all that so I would’ve thought it was the other way around.’

And Matthew Martin, 62, who lives in a housing association flat in Earl’s Court but was homeless at one time, said that even with a ‘very small amount of money’ a healthy diet is possible.

He said: ‘I’ve been homeless myself and I know with a very small amount of money you can buy eggs, pasta, tomatoes, you can make soup. It’s not a grand living but you can live reasonably well.’

Paul Edwards, 53, a father of two from Maidstone, Kent, who was visiting Kensington, said he paid attention to his health.

He said: ‘I take supplements, go to the gym and try to avoid saturated fats, salts and all that.

‘My mum’s family’s from Cumbria so I’m quite aware of the difference between housing and lifestyle between northern and southern communities.

‘When I visit there I know exactly the difference and I feel really fortunate to live in south-east, though it feels crowded and overpopulated at times, the standard of housing is better and the awareness of healthy lifestyles, in my opinion, is more prevalent in the southeast than it is up there.’

The King’s Fund said life expectancy in England in 2025 reached the highest levels ever recorded, but the gains in longevity were not shared equally.

It said geographical inequalities reflect socio-economic inequalities and greater levels of deprivation in northern regions – and called the problem a ‘mark of shame’.

People living in the most deprived 30 per cent of areas experienced a fall or no improvement in life expectancy in the decade to 2022-24. And geographical and socio-economic inequalities in life expectancy have been widening since 2010, and people in all regions spend fewer years in good health.

Veena Raleigh, Senior Fellow at The King’s Fund said: ‘That people in our northern and deprived communities have seen little or no improvement in longevity over a decade, in contrast to the health gains in their southern and more well-off counterparts, is a mark of shame for an affluent country. 

‘Addressing this inequity in the nation’s health is not just a matter of social justice, it would reduce pressures on the NHS and the high economic costs of ill health.’

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Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said an object that crashed into a field in eastern Poland in the early hours of Thursday was probably a Russian missile.

The unidentified object caused a 10m-wide (33ft) crater a short distance from the village of Tarnawa Kolonia, about 100km (62 miles) from the border with Ukraine during a Russian attack on the city of Lviv.

“All the indications are that it was a Russian Kh-101 ballistic missile, but we want to be 100% certain about the type of missile and who launched it,” Tusk said during a specially convened meeting in nearby Lublin.

Ukraine’s acting Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said earlier on Thursday that a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile had “crossed into Poland as part of Russia’s massive strike against Ukraine, violating Nato airspace”.

Tusk said he was in contact with fellow European leaders before heading to the scene of Thursday’s incident. There were no reports of casualties in Thursday’s incident, he said, but it was being treated as serious.

A number of Russian drones and one unarmed Russian missile have landed in Poland since Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine began in February 2022.

Two Polish farmers were killed by a missile that landed just over the border from Ukraine In November 2022, but that was believed to have been a Ukrainian air defence missile responding to a Russian attack.

Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said about 20 objects were seen close to Polish airspace overnight and pyrotechnical analysis was being carried out to determine the identity of the object that fell near Tarnawa Kolonia.

Poland’s military detected the object at about 03:40 on Thursday (01:40 GMT) and sent an F-16 fighter jet to intercept it before it disappeared minutes later from radar systems. A military helicopter was then sent to search the area.

Air raid sirens blared in Lublin and Krasnystaw further to the south-east because of the Russian airstrikes that killed eight people in neighbouring Ukraine. Residents in Tarnawa Kolonia reported hearing a loud bang at about 04:00 and police found the crash site about an hour later.

The Polish leader had met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Lublin the previous evening as Zelensky was returning from talks with US President Donald Trump.

Thousands of people including tourists were evacuated late on Wednesday as fires threatened a tourist resort on the Greek island of Crete and continued to rage on Thursday, fanned by violent winds.

‘We evacuated (some) 8,000 people’ from the resort village of Agia Galini, Maria Lioni, deputy governor of the Rethymno area, told state TV ERT.

The evacuations were decided as the fire, which broke out Wednesday and had earlier killed two firefighters, got to within a kilometre of the village before changing direction in the evening.

The fire is believed to have burned down homes, agricultural facilities and farm animals, but the toll is unclear as the fire is ongoing, Lioni said, calling it a ‘dark day.’

Two firefighters were trapped on a mountain road near the village of Krya Vrysi and died as the winds kept changing direction.

A third firefighter collapsed and died during efforts to put out a separate fire near Gytheio in the Peloponnese peninsula.

It comes as Europe is battling some of the worst wildfires in living memory across multiple popular holiday destinations including France, Spain and Turkey:

• A wildfire broke out on Thursday morning in Germany’s Chiemgau Alps mountain range. 200 firefighters and emergency personnel are on the scene. 
•  In Spain, 207,000 hectares (511,000 acres) of land have burned nationwide, as firefighters continue to tackle a week-long wildfire outside Madrid. A new wildfire broke out on Wednesday near Spain’s border with Portugal, forcing the evacuation of more than 600 people.
• In France, some 92,000 hectares have burned after a devastating fire swept through Bordeaux. New fires have now erupted between the cities of Marseille and Nice and in the Burgundy region.
• Turkish firefighters on Wednesday battled wildfires near the country’s southern tourist beaches that have forced the evacuation of hundreds of people.

A volunteer works to extinguish a fire in low-lying vegetation in Krya Vrysi, Rethymno, Crete

A volunteer uses a shovel as they battle a wildfire at Seydikemer district in Mugla, Turkey

This picture shows burnt-out cars and properties ravaged by a wildfire in the Encinar del Alberche residential area in Villa del Prado, south-west of Madrid

The Crete fire department had dedicated a force of over 200 firefighters and 53 fire engines in the Rethymno area in southwestern Crete, but winds of up to 102 kilometres (63 miles) an hour was preventing most aircraft from taking on seawater. 

The fire front in Rethymno is over 15 kilometres long according to local civil protection official Giorgos Tsapakos.

But inhabited areas are ‘not under immediate threat’ as the fire is mainly burning forest and agricultural land, Tsapakos told Skai TV.

A coastguard spokesman said there were four patrol boats at Agia Galini ready to help with additional evacuations, including one from EU border agency Frontex.

‘But conditions are extremely difficult, there are (violent) wind shears,’ he said.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis paid tribute to the fallen firefighters on Wednesday.

‘Our thoughts are with them, as well as with all the firefighters, volunteers and members of the security forces who are battling the fire fronts, in the midst of a new harsh reality that they are called upon to face every year,’ the prime minister said.

Nearly 100 firefighters were separately tackling a fire near the village of Plomari on the island of Lesbos.

The civil protection ministry placed several areas on near-maximum fire alert for Thursday, including Crete, the greater Athens area, the eastern Peloponnese and most of the Aegean islands.

The National Observatory’s weather website meteo.gr said wind shears in the Rethymno area had been recorded at up to 125 kilometres per hour, and wind intensity was expected to remain high on Thursday.

Greece faces destructive wildfires almost every summer as prolonged drought, high temperatures and strong winds create ideal conditions for blazes to spread rapidly.

A wildfire broke out on Thursday morning in Germany’s Chiemgau Alps mountain range, near the village of Unterwossen.

200 members of the fire departments, mountain rescue, emergency medical services, and the police are on the scene tackling the blaze.

‘People are being asked to keep their windows and doors closed, turn off their ventilation and air conditioning systems, and avoid the area around the incident site,’ said a spokesperson for the district fire department association. 

Meanwhile in Spain,  207,000 hectares (511,000 acres) of land have burned nationwide, among the largest areas in any January to July period on record according to the European Forest Fire Information System. 

Emergency services have been working since last Thursday to put out a blaze in the Madrid region, and another in the nearby province of Avila, which officials said is the worst in Spain’s recent history.

The blazes forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, many of whom have now been allowed to return home.

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Wednesday that efforts to extinguish a major wildfire near Madrid were progressing ‘favourably’ and the coming hours would be ‘decisive’.

Tourists prepare to be transferred on a bus from the town of Moires as a wildfire burns on the island of Crete

An aerial view shows firefighting teams continue aerial and ground operations to contain a forest fire that spread due to strong winds in the Alanya district of Antalya

A helicopter drops water to extinguish a fire in the mountain forest in the Chiemgau Alps, near the village of Unterwossen, Germany

A house and belongings destroyed by a wildfire are photographed as the fire continues to spread in Pelayos de la Presa, Madrid province

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Smoke rises in a wooden area during a wildfire, south of Rethymno in the Greek island of Crete

Firefighters take a break after working to extinguish a fire in the forest near Blagon, during wildfires in southwestern France

 ‘Today I believe we are closer to that final objective’ of ‘defeating the fire’, Sanchez told reporters in televised comments at a command centre in the town of Navalcarnero near the fire zone.

‘Things are progressing favourably, with the greatest of caution,’ he added.

‘I believe the next 12 hours will be very important – they will be decisive for consolidating the work that has been done’ by firefighters.

A new wildfire broke out on Wednesday near Spain’s border with Portugal, forcing the evacuation of more than 600 people, emergency services said.

A total of 11 areas were evacuated, and residents of two others were ordered to shelter in place, the services said.

Authorities did not say the area burned in the fire in Fermosselle region, but several roads have been closed.

Spain’s Military Emergency Unit (UME) was deployed to the Level 2 fire – a classification that triggers extra support from the central government.

Two other Level 2 fires – at Val de la Loba and San Cipriano del Condado – are active in the same Zamora province, in the Castile and Leon region which has already been hit by the largest fire in Spanish history since record-keeping began.

In France, some 92,000 hectares have burned between January and July – the largest area ever documented in records that date back two decades. 

The Gironde region reported a second calm night and said the massive fire west of France’s wine-making capital of Bordeaux remained stable despite a spike in temperatures on Wednesday as the fourth heatwave of the summer roasted the area.

‘If the night goes well, we can reasonably be more optimistic for tomorrow and the days to come,’ Sophie Brocas, a senior regional official, said.

In the southeastern region of Var, however, more than 600 people were forced to flee after a fresh fire erupted in the region nestled along France’s Mediterranean coast between the cities of Marseille and Nice.

The new fire erupted less than a day after another blaze in the Var was brought under control.

Another forest fire erupted in the eastern region of Burgundy near the city of Dijon, sweeping across 125 hectares but without causing any casualties or damage to homes, local officials said.

And Turkish firefighters on Wednesday battled wildfires near the country’s southern tourist beaches that have forced the evacuation of hundreds of people, authorities said.

Hundreds of firefighters went up against the biggest fire in Mugla province, with more than 20 planes and helicopters bombing water on the flames, the agriculture ministry said.

Media reports said the main highway from the tourist city of Antalya to the beach resort of Fethiye had been closed because of the smoke.

NTV television said that access to the ancient ruins at Olympos in Antalya province had been closed.

In Mugla province, the wildfire started on agricultural land and spread to a forest, the provincial governor’s office said. It added that 202 residents and some patients from a hospital had been evacuated.

Another major fire burned in the Balikesir region on the Aegean coast along the road connecting Izmir, the country’s third-largest city, to the Dardanelles region.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said late Wednesday that some 90 fires had broken out on Wednesday in the country, with 81 brought under control.

People walk on a beach as smoke rises from a wildfire burning next to the village of Plomari

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A fire rages in the forest near Blagon, during wildfires in southwestern France 

Tourists take shelter at the sports hall of the town of Moires as a wildfire burns on the island of Crete

Several wildfires are affecting the southern part of Brignoles and threatening the village of Camps-la-Source

A firefighter uses a waterhose as they operate to battle a wildfire at Seydikemer district in Mugla

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Fire burns on the Greek island of Crete

 More than 3,000 firefighters are working to contain the remaining fires, he said.

Turkey has sent two firefighting planes to Spain to help with its wildfires and two others to France, which has also been battling forest fires.

On Wednesday, nine villages were evacuated on the Greek holiday island of Paros.

Footage shared on social media shows bright orange flames rising above the mountains as dark clouds of smoke engulf the island.

 Local media has reported that residents are fleeing to the beaches on the instructions of emergency services.

According to Greek news outlet ProtoThema, emergency crews have been battling the blaze non-stop since Tuesday afternoon. 

The response team in Paros includes 66 firefighters, specialised forest firefighting units from Athens, five helicopters, and two water-bombing planes. 

One resident who fled to the neighbouring island of Antiparos told Swiss outlet Blick: ‘This is turning into a real catastrophe! The fire spread further south with the wind in just three hours.’

Early on Wednesday, residents in Trypiti, Glyfa, Pyrgaki and Aspro Chorio were ordered to evacuate towards Dryos, after an earlier alert told people in Agkairia to flee to Aliki beach. 

The orders followed Tuesday’s evacuations from Agios Charalambos, Kambi, Bougados, Aneratza and Kamari as the blaze continued to spread.

Deputy Mayor Haris Giourtzidis said authorities did not yet have ‘a clear picture of the extent of the damage’, adding: ‘So far, we know that two barns have burned down.’

He said strong, persistent winds were hampering firefighting efforts and revealed emergency crews had been forced to remove some residents from their homes after they refused to leave their animals behind.

Danny Welbeck is set for a medical at Chelsea, who have clinched another shock signing in the form of Jordan Henderson as they also get ready to announce the arrival of Maxence Lacroix. Liverpool are launching their first bid for Bradley Barcola, who wants to move to Anfield, while Manchester United remain in pursuit of a third midfielder as they target the likes of Aurelien Tchouameni, Eduardo Camavinga, Manu Kone and Carlos Baleba.

The road remains closed on Thursday morning

A person has been taken to hosptial after an early morning crash in Co Armagh.

Police are appealing for information following a single-vehicle collision in the Moy Road area just before 1am on July 30.

The road remains closed to traffic on Thursday morning.

A PSNI spokesperson said: “At approximately 12.40am, a report was received of a single-vehicle collision in the Moy Road area.

“Officers along with colleagues from other emergency services attended and one person was taken to hospital for treatment for their injuries.

“Anyone who may have witnessed the collision or with CCTV or other footage that could assist with enquiries, is asked to contact police on 101 quoting reference 47 30/07/26.

“The Moy Road between Drumcairn Road and Cabragh Road remains closed at this time.”

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NATO scrambled warplanes during a huge Russian attack on Ukraine, as a missile landed in Poland creating a 33ft crater.

Polish police found the crater and scattered debris in a field near the village of Tarnawa-Kolonia in the Lublin province, following reports of an explosion. 

The missile disappeared from army radars tracking it in domestic airspace during Russian strikes on Ukraine, authorities said on Thursday.

Poland scrambled fighter jets to secure its airspace after Russian air strikes killed at least 13 in neighbouring Ukraine, including one in Kyiv, the capital, in attacks that spread as far as the western city of Lviv.

‘An unidentified object moving westward was detected in Polish airspace,’ the operational command of the armed forces said on X, adding that it disappeared from radars soon after the sighting at 3.40am.

A Mi-24 helicopter that went to the object’s last location to verify and confirm the radar data pinpointed the likely crash site, it added.

Later, Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed the object was a missile, saying: ‘From the early morning hours, we have all been very strongly mobilised. 

‘During Russia’s massive missile attack on Ukraine, a serious incident also occurred in Poland. A missile fell in the village of Tarnowa-Kolonia. Fortunately, there are no reports of casualties or damage.’

Local residents react outside a residential building partially destroyed as a result of Russian missile strikes in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on July 30

First responders escort a wounded local resident (C) outside a residential building partially destroyed as a result of Russian missile strikes in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on July 30 

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Ukraine’s foreign ministry said a Russian cruise missile had ‘crossed into Poland’ as part an attack on Ukraine, ‘violating NATO airspace’.

The missile, which Ukraine identified as a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile, landed around 1.2 miles from the nearest buildings.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow had launched more than 70 missiles and over 280 drones at the country overnight. 

One person was killed and two more injured in the capital, emergency services said, with six more, including two children, killed in the regions ​of Dnipropetrovsk and Poltava.

In Zelensky’s hometown, the central city of Kryvyi Rih, two girls aged 5 and 12 were among ⁠six killed, with eight injured in what Oleksandr Vilkul, the city’s defence council head, said was a direct strike by a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile.

‘A dark ​night,’ Vilkul said on Telegram, adding that the missile, launched from Russia’s Voronezh region, struck the home of a large family, and warned the death toll could ​increase as emergency workers clear away rubble. 

Earlier, Zelensky had warned a massive Russian attack was likely, saying the safety of Ukrainians depended on the willingness of allies to provide anti-missile defences.

‘It is important that our partners ​fully understand what is happening and that the protection of people’s lives depends directly on their willingness,’ Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday ​its forces struck what it called military facilities across Ukraine, in areas from the capital Kyiv to Lviv and Dnipropetrovsk, as well as three cargo ships. 

The attacks come as Zelensky returns from the United States, where he said President Donald Trump agreed to give Ukraine licences for Patriot missiles. 

A man reacts near an apartment building hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Lviv, Ukraine July 30 

A woman reacts near an apartment building hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Lviv, Ukraine July 30

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Smoke rises as firefighters work to extinguish a fire at Wildberries logistics hub following a Ukrainian drone attack in the Ryazan region of Russia on July 29

A warehouse of Russian top online retailer Wildberries caught fire in the western city of Penza after Ukraine’s drone attack, regional governor Oleg ​Melnichenko said on Telegram. 

One person was injured and ​about 200 people evacuated from the ⁠site, he added, just a day after the company, which has become a frequent target of Ukraine’s attacks, evacuated another facility in central Russia. 

Another of its facilities, in Sarapul in Russia’s Udmurtia region, also caught fire after a drone attack, the company ​said separately on Thursday. 

Its losses pile on the pain for ordinary Russians, some of whom have made online sales their main ​source of income, as ⁠Ukraine continues hitting energy facilities and refineries, deepening the fuel crisis in the world’s largest country by area. 

Drone strikes have damaged nearly a dozen Wildberries warehouses recently, destroying about 10 per cent of storage capacity and inflicting losses on tens of thousands of small businesses using the platform, the company and local authorities say. 

Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank, has warned it may ⁠have to ​boost loan-loss provisions as attacks on Wildberries hit the finances of online retailers and their suppliers. 

Russia ​downed a total of 258 drones overnight, its defence ministry said. 

That figure covers Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. 

Both Russia and Ukraine deny targeting civilians in the war ​following Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022.