France: recognition of electro-magnetic sensitivity as an occupational disease
We Are The Evidence, a wireless technology injured advocacy group, has reported that in January this year the French Court of Cergy-Pontoise ruled for the first time that Electromagnetic Hyper Sensitivity (EHS) is an occupational disease that can be developed also from exposure to levels of radiation which are considered to be safe by the government (if they can be injurious as the court ruled then they are clearly unsafe).
There is much debate internationally about the effects of electro-magnetic radiation. This decision is the latest of other decisions by courts in France that recognize EHS (also known as Microwave Sickness, which is the older more accurate name). The other recent decision from France, from September 2018, recognized that an employee was injured in an incident at work as a result of exposure to wireless radiation because of the employer's failure to accommodate his Microwave Sickness and re-assign him to a different position with less exposure.
Read more: French Court Recognized Electromagnetic-Sensitivity as an Occupational Disease, We Are The Evidence
China: Firefighters die in forest blaze
At least 30 firefighters have died while fighting a huge forest fire in south-western China. According to the Government, fire crews had been fighting the blaze in the mountains of Sichuan province on Sunday when a change in wind direction caused "a huge fireball", trapping them. Contact with 30 firefighters was lost and by the following day state television confirmed that all 30 of them had perished. The deaths happened when about 690 firefighters have been trying to control the flames in a remote area of Muli county. The blaze broke out at a remote spot in the rugged mountains, at an altitude of about 3,800 meters, where transport and communication are difficult.
There has been a spate of forest fires in China recently. A separate forest fire in the northern province of Shanxi was brought under control on the same day at the Sichuan tragedy after burning for two days. No casualties were reported from that fire, but at least 9,000 people were evacuated from their homes. The Sichuan blaze is one of the most serious incidents of its kind in the last few years but there have been several others in the past, most recently in 2015, when an explosion at a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin killed 173 people, most of them firefighters and other first responders.
Read more: BBC News, Source Risks 892
