SYDNEY, Australia — Flying into Sydney usually brings stunning views of rocky cliffs and crystal waters, but when Anna Funder looked out the window before landing this week, she saw only tragedy. Thick gray smoke blanketed the skyline and the coast, stretching for miles from the fire front at the southwestern edge of the city, where dried-out forests have been burning for weeks. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Ms. Funder, an award-winning Australian novelist known for stories of cruelty and resistance. “It was this huge and terrible seam of white smoke coming up from the ground beyond which the rest of the continent — where I was headed, where my home is — was invisible. “It was as if the country were being devoured by a chemical reaction.”Sydney, nicknamed the “Emerald City” for its subtropical beauty, is struggling with a summer of choking smoke.

Source: New York Times December 06, 2019 08:13 UTC