An aerial view of sinkholes (obruk), caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer, in Konya, Turkiye on September 17, 2024. Many sinkholes are observed in the fields of Eseli Plateau located within the borders of Resadiye Neighborhood in the north-west of Karapinar district, where sinkhole formation has increased rapidly in recent years. (Photo by Serhat Cetinkaya/Anadolu via Getty Images)

View of the visitor walkway at the Iguazu Falls, which was destroyed by the strong current of the river on the triple border between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, on October 30, 2023. The Falls are flowing at over 24 million liters of water per second, according to hydrological monitoring by Companhia Paranaense de Energia (Copel). This is the second highest flow since 1997, when monitoring became automatic and was measured hourly. (Photo by Christian Rizzi/AFP Photo)

Drivers merge onto expressway lanes after passing through the Wuzhuang toll station at Chuzhou, in China's eastern Anhui province, as they make their way back home on the second-to-last day of an eight-day National Day holiday on October 7, 2025. The Wuzhuang toll station, located on the border between Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, is China's largest expressway toll station, with a total of 36 lanes. (Photo by AFP Photo/China Stringer Network)

Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west. Its population was estimated to be around 6.5 million in 2012. A third (33%) of the country's population lives below the international poverty line which means living on less than U.S. $1.25 per day.

During the spring harvest season, a group of traditional Malaysian honey hunters travel to the rainforest near the Thai border to collect honeycombs from giant bees – and risk their lives climbing 200ft trees. Here: Bees are sensitive to light, which makes them follow the glowing embers down to the ground. (Photo by Hasnoor Hussain/The Guardian)

A Kurdish girl wears her relative's assault rifle and ammunition belt as she waits at the Iraqi Kurdish Shaqouli checkpoint, some 35 kilometres east of Mosul, on November 10, 2016. Since the start of the Mosul offensive the Kurds have moved their border some 10 kms closer to Iraq's second city, marking it out with a line in the sand. (Photo by Odd Andersen/AFP Photo)

A girl swims in floodwaters in Malaysia' s northeastern town of Rantau Panjang, which borders Thailand, on January 5, 2017 Floods in two northeast Malaysian states have now forced almost 23,000 people from their homes and extra relief centres have been opened, rescue officials said on January 4. (Photo by Mohd Rasfan/AFP Photo)