The Thai beach made famous in Leonardo DiCaprio’s movie The Beach has reopened to visitors after a 32-month closure.

Maya Bay, on the island of Phi Phi Leh, is welcoming tourists again after access was restricted to allow the area’s ecosystem to recover.

Once known for its pristine shoreline and coral-filled waters, the beach was closed in May 2019 after researchers discovered that overtourism was destroying the region’s natural ecosystem.

Its reopening comes with strict limits on visitor numbers, which are capped to 375 at once.

Swimming remains off-limits to tourists and boats can only dock at designated locations that are on the other side of the island, away from protected coral reefs.

“The sharks have come back, coral reefs are regrowing, and the water is clear again,” Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, told Reuters.

“These things show that nature will heal if we give it time, and we have to work to keep it that way, too.”

The beach’s closure in 2019 followed a four-month temporary shutting in 2018.

That original closure didn’t give the natural ecological system enough time to rehabilitate, with authorities reporting that up to 80 per cent of the region’s corals remained dead despite the measures.

The decision was then made to close the beach again until further notice, at least until 2021.

Endangered tigers seen in Thailand after four-year absence
Maya Bay became a bucket-list favourite after it was featured in the 2000 backpacking blockbuster directed by Danny Boyle, starring DiCaprio as an American adventurer seeking escape on a pristine island in Thailand.

Surrounded by towering limestone cliffs and the Andaman Sea, the beach lies on the coastline of Phi Phi Leh island in Krabi, one of Thailand’s most popular provinces for tourists.

Six mill workers in India have been killed and more than 20 taken to hospital after inhaling toxic gas caused by an illegal dump of waste chemicals, officials said.

The incident took place at a dyeing and printing mill in the industrial city of Surat in Gujarat state at around 4am local time on Thursday.

Chemicals were illegally discharged into a stream near the mill as people worked inside, police and fire officers said.

“Chemicals were being illegally discharged from a tanker into a rivulet close to the mill, which possibly reacted with another chemical in the water and created toxic gas,” said Surat Municipal Corporation’s chief fire officer Basant Pareek.

“The workers inhaled the gas and started feeling suffocation. When we reached the scene, the workers were found collapsed on the road in their attempt to escape.”

Six workers died and 23 people were admitted to hospital, with seven in a critical condition and on ventilators, said Mr Pareek.

Senior police official Sharad Singhal said officers were investigating but had yet to make any arrests.

“This was not an accidental gas leakage. Hazardous chemicals were being discharged when the incident took place,” he said.

India suffered the world’s worst industrial disaster in 1984 when methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide factory owned by American Union Carbide Corporation in the city of Bhopal, killing more than 5,000 people.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Thursday that more than 2,000 mining, plantation and forest-use permits have been revoked due to non-compliance or because they had been unused, tightening oversight of the nation’s natural resources.

Jokowi, as the president is known, said in a broadcast the action was taken to improve governance and transparency in the rich natural resources sector.

The permits revoked include 1,776 in metals and minerals mining, 302 in coal mining, as well as in forestry and plantations that cover more than three million hectares of land, spread across the archipelago.

“Permits that are not used, not productive, transferred to other parties and those that do not fit the required purposes are revoked,” Jokowi said.

The president did not disclose any of the holders of the permits.

The government will offer a chance for farmers and civil society organisations to manage some of the assets by partnering with companies, he said, adding that the country will be open to “investors that are credible.”

India’s cabinet approved a plan on Thursday to build transmission lines costing $1.61 billion over 5 years to link 20 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy projects from seven states with the grid, as the nation moves to cut its carbon emissions.

India, the world’s third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, aims to cut its projected emissions by a billion tonnes by 2030 and raise renewable power generation to 430 GW, equivalent to about half of the country’s energy mix.

Prime minister Narendra Modi last year announced 2070 as the target for India to reach net zero carbon emissions.

The federal government will provide assistance equal to about a third of the overall 120 billion rupee investment required for the expansion of transmission lines in the second phase of the so called green corridor project, a government statement said.

The scheme will add about 10,750 circuit kilometres of transmission lines, for projects in western state of Gujarat, the desert state of Rajasthan, the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, and the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, it said.

In the first phase of the project to be completed this year, India is building 9,700 circuit kilometers of transmission lines.

A magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck off the coast of Nicaragua on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said, though there were no immediate reports of damage.

USGS said the tremor hit 59 kilometers (37 miles) south of the coastal city of Corinto at a depth of 27.5 kilometers (17 miles).

Speaking on local radio, Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo cited preliminary information from the Nicaraguan Territorial Studies Institute (INETER) reporting a 6.1 magnitude quake.

Tremors were also felt in neighboring Costa Rica.