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East Java’s blue lava spectacle

BRILLIANT blue flames light up the night sky above Kawah Ijen, casting an eerie electric glow as they flow down the sides of the active volcano in remote Indonesia.

Hot sulphuric gases – escaping at high pressure through cracks in the mountain – ignite upon contact with air, burning a fantastic, iridescent blue. This strange natural phenomenon can also create “blue lava” – rivers of burning liquid sulphur that stream from the vast crater.


The gases burn day and night at this spectacular volcano in the extreme east of Java island, but its characteristic blue hue can only be observed

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Indian man left without UK status after wife and daughter died in Air India crash

Among the 260 dead were 169 Indian nationals, 53 British citizens, and one Canadian, including Sadikabanu and her daughter

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Indian man left without UK status after wife and daughter died in Air India crash

Highlights

  • Air India Flight 171 crash in June 2025 killed 260 people, including Mohammad Shethwala’s wife and child.
  • Home Office rejected his humanitarian visa, saying no exceptional circumstances.
  • Critics condemned the decision, comparing it to the Windrush scandal.
Mohammad Shethwala came to the UK from India in March 2022 as a dependent on his wife Sadikabanu's student visa, while she pursued her studies at Ulster University's London campus.
The couple settled in the capital, and their daughter Fatima was born in Britain. Life was moving forward.
Sadikabanu had recently started a new job in Rugby and was preparing to apply for a Skilled Worker visa, a step that would have secured the family's future in the UK from 2026 onwards.

That future ended on 12 June 2025. The Ahmedabad-to-London Air India flight went down seconds after take-off, killing all 241 passengers and crew on board, as well as 19 people on the ground after the aircraft struck a medical college hostel building and caught fire.

Among the 260 dead were 169 Indian nationals, 53 British citizens and one Canadian. Sadikabanu and two-year-old Fatima were both on that flight.

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