A catastrophic forest fire in Portugal has claimed at least 57 lives, officials say.
Most
died while trying to flee the Pedrógão Grande area, 50 km (30 miles)
south-east of Coimbra, in their cars, according to the government.
Several firefighters are among the 59 people injured.
"Unfortunately
this seems to be the greatest tragedy we have seen in recent years in
terms of forest fires," said Prime Minister Antonio Costa.
The death toll could rise further, he said.
Secretary
of State for the Interior Jorge Gomes said that 30 of those who died
were found inside cars, with another 17 next to the vehicles, on one
road leading on to the IC8 motorway.
Media in Portugal said the fire is no closer to being contained despite about 600 firefighters working to put it out.
Among
the 59 injured was an eight-year-old girl with burns found wandering
alone close to the fire, the Correio do Manhã newspaper reported.
Six firefighters are seriously wounded, national broadcaster RTP said, and two are reported missing.
The
Correio do Manhã warned that many areas hit by the fire had not yet
been reached by authorities, so the death toll was likely to increase.
About 60 forest fires broke out across the country overnight, with close to 1,700 firefighters battling them across Portugal.
The flames spread "with great violence" on four fronts near Pedrógão Grande, Mr Gomes said.
Spain
has sent two water-bombing planes to help tackle the fires, and the
European Union is co-ordinating an international firefighting and relief
effort.
It is not yet known what caused the fire, however Mr Costa said thunderstorms could have been one possible cause.
Portugal has been experiencing a heatwave, with temperatures of more than 40C (104F) in some areas.
"This
is a region that has had fires because of its forests, but we cannot
remember a tragedy of these proportions," Valdemar Alves, the mayor of
Pedrógão Grande, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press agency.
"I am completely stunned by the number of deaths."
What happens next? Alison Roberts, BBC News, Lisbon
We
have had large-scale fires before over the past couple of decades -
this year is not unusual in that respect - but it is certainly unusual
to have so many fatalities in one place. Portuguese officials are
visibly shocked.
There were very particular circumstances with the
lightning strikes here - this fire started with a dry lightning strike.
There has been rainfall elsewhere but there was no rain there, and this
is a heavily-forested area.
Getting it under control depends not
only on temperatures, which do seem as though they will be high, but on
the wind above all. It is very much in the hands of Mother Nature.
Everyone in frame is smiling and laughing in the North Korean cold. Otto Warmbier, like the other tourists, launches a snowball, captured in slow motion on what appears to be a camera phone.
It's the kind of innocent fun you expect to be captured on a tour group holiday. Otto turns to his right, mouth wide open, laughing.
"This is the Otto I know and love. This is my brother," wrote Austin Warmbier, who released the video, which was shot during a three-night North Korea tour at the end of 2015.
Two months later, Otto would again appear on video, but in very different circumstances.
Head bowed and clutching a prepared "confession", the 21-year-old student walked out in front of North Korean TV cameras to speak, explaining why he had been arrested at the end of that tour, when everyone else had been allowed to leave.
Looming over him were the oversized portraits of North Korea's former supreme leaders, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.
He wore a cream-coloured jacket and tie. Before speaking, he got up an offered a low bow.
Otto thanked the North Korean government for the "opportunity to apologise for my crime, to beg for forgiveness and to beg for any assistance to save my life".
He said he tried to steal a propaganda sign from a hotel as a "trophy" for a US church with the "connivance of the US administration" in order to "harm the work ethic and motivation of the Korean people".
Later, he would break down in tears: "I have made the single worst decision of my life, but I am only human."
Otto is now back in the US after 15 months of captivity in North Korea. But he is in a coma, cannot understand language and has severe brain damage.
In the year-and-a-half since he threw that snowball, the life of a young man full of promise has been permanently altered.
Much remains unknown about how Otto's health deteriorated. Doctors at Cincinnati Medical Center say they have seen no sign he was physically abused but they and his family also don't buy North Korea's story that he contracted botulism and fell into a coma after taking a sleeping pill.
But how did a brilliant student from an Ohio suburb with hopes of becoming an investment banker end up imprisoned in a pariah state? And why was he released in a coma?
Homecoming king
The Warmbiers hail from a small suburb called Wyoming in Cincinnati, Ohio, where father Fred owns a small company.
Otto attended the best high school in the state, and was prom and homecoming king.
He was not only popular but also studious - he graduated as Salutatorian (the second-highest ranking student in his year) - and a talented athlete. His football coach has said he was a gifted player and a natural leader.
Otto went on to study economics and commerce with a minor in global sustainability at the University of Virginia and flourished there, according to the Washington Post.
The newspaper interviewed Otto's classmates at their graduation ceremony in May, where #FreeOtto stickers were handed out. The 22-year-old was in his third year of university when he was detained in North Korea. This should have been his graduation too.
Friends described him as a "sports fan who can reel off stats about seemingly any team, a friendly Midwesterner who can break down underground rap lyrics (and craft some of his own), a deep thinker who would challenge himself and others to question their place in the world, a guy from an entrepreneurial family who ate half-price sushi, an insatiably curious person with a strong work ethic and a delight in the ridiculous," the paper reported.
Otto is said to have known long before his college peers what he wanted to pursue as a career: investment banking.
According to his LinkedIn profile, he sat on the committee of a student investment fund and travelled to London in 2015 to complete a course in advanced econometrics at the London School of Economics.
His studiousness - and interest in travel - were what took him to Asia. Otto had been set to study at a university in Hong Kong on a study abroad programme in January 2016 and decided to stop in North Korea on the way.
He went through a China-based company called Young Pioneer Tours, which boasts of providing "budget travel to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from".
'They decided to take an American'
Danny Gratton, from Staffordshire in the UK, shared a room with Otto during the three-night trip - they were the only two members of the tour group who were there on their own.
"From the second I met him we hit it off. He was very bright, intelligent and likeable," he told the BBC.
The night Otto is said to have tried to take the sign from within a staff-only area of the 1,000-room Yanggakdo International Hotel was New Year's Eve 2015, the second night of the tour.
Earlier, the group had taken a trip to the border with South Korea before returning, having a meal and taking a coach to Pyongyang's main square, where there was a big fireworks display. They had food and drank beer, Mr Gratton said.
However there was no rowdy behaviour - "It wasn't that sort of holiday," Mr Gratton said. "We toed the line." He said there was "no indication at all" that Otto had taken the hotel propaganda sign and he had not mentioned it.
The North Korean government has released grainy video footage showing a dark figure whose face cannot be seen removing a sign in a corridor.
Otto was taken away by guards as the pair went through immigration control at Pyongyang International Airport on 2 January 2016.
Image copyrightAFP/GETTYImage captionOtto is accused of stealing a sign from the Yanggakdo hotel, seen on the left - but Danny told the BBC it "wasn't that sort of holiday". "We toes the line," he said
"We were the last two people to go through passport control. We handed over our passports and the guy pointed at Otto and pointed to the door. Two security guards came over and ushered him away," said Mr Gratton.
"I made an ironic comment. I actually said 'Well we won't be seeing you again'. He sort of laughed at me and that was the last we saw of him.
"They made the decision to take an American. It was just his time, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
'Terrorised and brutalised'
Later, once the remaining group arrived in Beijing, one of the tour guides is reported to have spoken to Otto on the phone, who said he had a "severe headache and wanted to be taken to the hospital", the Post reports, citing another passenger.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionOtto is transferred from a medical transport plane to an ambulance in Cincinnati
The BBC has contacted Young Pioneer Tours for comment.
North Korea only confirmed that Otto had been arrested weeks later, on 22 January. He gave his televised statement in late February and was given 15 years' hard labour, for crimes against the state, in March.
Observers said the sentence seemed unusually high for a foreigner and could be related to deepening tensions between North Korea and the US over the former's nuclear programme.
It's unclear what happened to Otto between his sentencing and the announcement of his release on 14 June by the US government.
But his father Fred says he slipped into the coma "the day after he was sentenced" - well over a year ago.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionOtto's father Fred wore his son's jacket as he spoke to journalists
Speaking at a press conference wearing the same jacket worn by his son on the day he "confessed" in Pyongyang, he said the North Korean government had "brutalised and terrorised" Otto.
North Korea says it released him on "humanitarian grounds".
Intelligence agencies in the North might have kept the state of his health under wraps, including from top officials, out of fear, says Stephan Haggard, director of the Korea-Pacific Programme at the University of California, San Diego.
At some stage, someone would have realised "that the worst of all possible worlds is for the guy to die in custody", kickstarting a frantic diplomatic effort to get him out, he told the AFP news agency.
Image copyrightEPAImage captionLocal businesses in Wyoming have also show their support
Dr Daniel Kanter, one of those looking after Otto in Cincinnati says he is in "a state of unresponsive wakefulness". He has not spoken but has "spontaneous eye opening and blinking", he said.
Respiratory arrest is believed to be the cause of the brain damage, but it remains unclear what caused it. There are no signs that Otto was beaten.
He is breathing on his own but has not spoken and, at the request of the family, doctors will not disclose a prognosis.
His family are happy he is "now home in the arms of those who love him", Fred Warmbier said. When the plane carrying Otto touched down on Tuesday evening, people gathered at the airport cheered.
"It's just been so long that he's been there that to hear he is actually coming home was incredible," his college roommate Emmett Saulnier told CNN before Otto arrived.
He was carried out with a tube attached to his nose, and sent straight to hospital by ambulance.
Image copyrightEPAImage captionDr Kanter (C) says Otto is in a state of "unresponsive wakefulness"
The University of Virginia welcomed his return, but President Teresa Sullivan said the community was "deeply concerned and saddened" to learn of his condition.
"When I knelt down by his side and I hugged him and I told him I missed him and I was so glad he made it home," Fred Warmbier said of what he did when he first saw his son.
"These things are tough to process but he's with us and we're trying to make him comfortable and we want to be a part of his life."
An Afghan soldier has attacked foreign troops at a military base, with a number of US soldiers wounded.
The attack took place at a base in the north of the country on Saturday, an official confirmed to the BBC.
However, a spokesman for the US military command, based in the capital Kabul, dismissed earlier reports American soldiers had been killed.
They did say an unspecified number had been wounded when the Afghan soldier opened fire at Camp Shaheen.
The Nato-led Resolute Support mission said one Afghan soldier was killed and one was injured in the incident, which took place at about 14:00 local time (09:30 GMT).
The camp, in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, Balkh province, is the base of the 209th Corps.
The veteran entertainer could have faced up to a decade in prison if found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault, which allegedly took place at his Philadelphia home 13 years ago.
Announcing the decision, Pennsylvania judge Steven O'Neill reminded Mr Cosby that he remains charged and on bail, despite the mistrial.
'Blinding power of celebrity'
The BBC's Aleem Maqbool, inside the courthouse, said Mr Cosby was expressionless when the decision was announced.
One of Mr Cosby's lawyers, Brian McMonagle, applauded the decision, saying: "The judge is right: justice is real."
"We came here looking for an acquittal. But like that Rolling Stone song says 'you don't always get what you want'. Sometimes you get what you need."
The district attorney who brought the charges, Kevin Steele, told reporters that the prosecution was seeking a retrial:
"We will evaluate and review our case. We will take a hard look at everything involved and then we will retry it. As I said in court, our plan is to move this case forward as soon as possible."
A lawyer representing many of Mr Cosby's accusers, Gloria Allred, said she was hoping the prosecution would try the case again.
"We can never underestimate the blinding power of celebrity but justice will come."
A blow for women's rights campaigners - BBC Aleem Maqbool, BBC News, North America correspondent
For the most part, his defence team worked on undermining the credibility of the woman who brought the allegations against him, saying they had kept in contact many times after the alleged assault.
For women's rights campaigners who have been here throughout the trial, they say it illustrates how the American justice system fails women who have been assaulted. They already feel that they can't come forward because their credibility will be torn apart, as has been the case with this trial.
But his reputation has undoubtedly been tarnished. For many they will have seen all those other women who couldn't bring their cases to trial - nearly 60 - with word that there are many more who never spoke out because they don't want to disrupt their lives. There's no question those stories have been read and will have seeped into people's consciousness here in America.
The jury had been instructed by the judge to work into the weekend to reach a verdict, after they first revealed that they were deadlocked on the case on Thursday.
But the panel returned again on Saturday to tell the judge they were still deadlocked on all three counts.
Some of the many women who accused Mr Cosby of drugging and assaulting them over a 40-year time span were present in court last week awaiting the verdict.
The accuser, Constand Andrea, took the stand during the trial, telling the court the assault had left her feeling "humiliated" by someone she considered a friend and mentor.
Mr Cosby, who faces at least four separate civil lawsuits, refused to testify at the trial.
There are many things fuelling the anger felt here.
The catastrophic loss of life is the primary factor, of course. But there is also the fact that people are finding it very difficult to get any information.
There does not appear to be any central official point here on the ground where people can go to get answers and support. No marquee with "help centre" written on the side. No officials with lanyards guiding confused and desperate people to counsellors.
There has been a huge voluntary response, with local churches and others helping people.
Donations have flooded in - too many now - such is the public response.
And unseen officials are caring for those in hospital and working to find empty accommodation in which to house those left homeless.
And yet on the ground people speak of a total lack of coordination from the government and Kensington and Chelsea council.
Local residents' association representatives say some families are still sleeping on floors in centres around the Grenfell Tower four days after the fire.
'Absolute chaos'
They talk of absolute chaos. And they say what they regard as the inability of the local council to respond to their needs and concerns is "symptomatic of why we had this disaster".
Such is the total and utter lack of trust between residents and the officials in charge.
One of the things fuelling the anger here - perhaps the main thing - is the lack of a central point of contact for answers.
Crisis management at disasters around the world swings into action at varying speeds. But even in remote areas, international bodies have normally set up obvious local centres of support fairly soon after the event.
It has not happened in North Kensington.
Twenty-four hours after the 2010 Haitian earthquake, I arrived to find no international response to speak of.
But within another 24 hours that response was arriving and was significant there three days after the disaster - teams from around the world flying in, crisis centres and the United Nations in control of feeding points and housing solutions.
Yes, there were problems. There always are. But the centralised and visible response was in place days later in a relatively remote area.
That is what appears to be missing in the richest borough in one of the world's leading cities.
People need visible and accessible emotional psychological and physical help and right now they say they are not getting it.
Many people here believe an affluent Conservative council failed to look after its poorest residents.
But one angry former resident of the tower, who moved out in October, said: "Right now the residents need housing and taking care of. The council have failed to do so.
"This is not about politics. It is about getting people what they need and deserve. It is an outrage."
There has been little trust between residents and the council over the years. They say their concerns about safety in the Grenfell Tower were not listened to - not acted upon.
Right now that lack of trust is deepening. And so is the anger.
First Secretary of State Damian Green told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Kensington council are absolutely doing their best.
"People want answers, people want someone on the ground. The new recovery taskforce that the prime minister is chairing has people from central government as well as from the council on the ground to answer all those perfectly reasonable questions.
