Farmer Mevlut Tarim says the furious fire that burned his cow alive, killed eight people and scorched vast swathes of Turkey was like an explosion.

"The fire happened in an instant," the 67-year-old told AFP after managing to pull and push some of his screaming animals through pitch-black smoke and patches of burning turf encircling his farm. 

At least 16 people have been killed and a quarter of a million people displaced from their homes after heavy monsoon rains lashed eastern India, officials said Tuesday, as the air force joined rescue efforts.

The latest deaths in West Bengal came a few days after 11 people were also killed in the state as the torrent of water swept away homes and triggered landslides.

Climate scientists have long warned that the 21st century would see more natural disasters made worse or more likely by global warming.

But a cascade of deadly extreme weather this summer in the northern hemisphere could make 2021 the year when climate predictions became a reality that can no longer be ignored.

China's climate envoy on Tuesday said the world's most populous nation would release its updated plans to reduce carbon emissions "in the near future" as nations prepare to meet later this year for a pivotal global conference.

Climate negotiators from 196 countries and the European Union as well as businesses, experts and world leaders will gather in Glasgow in November for the COP26 summit. 

A roaring blaze raced toward a Turkish thermal power plant Tuesday and farmers herded panicked cattle toward the sea as wildfires that have killed eight people raged on for a seventh day.

The death toll from floods in central China last month is at least 302 with dozens of people still missing, officials said Monday, after record downpours dumped a year's worth of rain on a city in just three days.

Greece is suffering its worst heatwave since 1987, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned on Monday, as forecasters said temperatures could hit 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) later.

Climate activists briefly blocked the entrances to the UBS and Credit Suisse headquarters in Zurich on Monday in protest against fossil fuel funding by Switzerland's two biggest banks.

The European Union sent help to Turkey on Monday and volunteers joined firefighters in battling a week of violent blazes that have killed eight people and put pressure on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The wildfires tearing through the resort regions of Turkey's Mediterranean and Aegean coasts have destroyed huge swathes of pristine forest and forced the evacuation of panicked tourists from their hotels.

Huan Huan, a giant panda on loan to France, gave birth to twin cubs very early Monday, according to the Beauval zoo. 

The twins, born around 1 am, are Huan Huan and her partner Yuan Zi's third cubs after the first panda ever born in France, Yuan Meng, in 2017.