Australia & Oceania

"Victims of the tsunami that swept across the South Pacific had only minutes to escape the deadly waves and in some cases didn't receive alerts of danger, despite years of work to upgrade early-warning systems across the region."

"A dangerous oil spill off the far north coast of Western Australian will take at least seven weeks to clean up and cost the company that owns the drilling rig tens of millions of dollars."

"The brown tree snake invasion has wiped out birds on guam and left a forest to survive on its own."