Places in News Current Affairs MCQs

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Recently, at least 20 people died after a migrant boat capsized off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa. It is administratively part of the autonomous region of Sicily in Italy but geographically part of the African continent. It is located in the Mediterranean Sea between Malta and Tunisia, 170 km southwest of Licata, Sicily. It is volcanic, with the last eruption about 9,000 years ago and major seismic events in the late 1800s.

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An earthquake of magnitude 5.7 recently struck Sulawesi in Indonesia. Sulawesi, earlier called Celebes, is a large island in Southeast Asia and part of the Indonesian archipelago. It belongs to the Greater Sunda Islands and is the 11th largest island in the world with an area of 180,680.7 square kilometers. The island has four interconnecting peninsulas and is surrounded by Borneo, Philippines, Maluku Islands, Flores, and Timor. It is mountainous with active volcanoes and rich rainforests, though much deforested.

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Kabak Yano, a mountaineer from Arunachal Pradesh, successfully climbed Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in Europe. Mount Elbrus is located in southwest Russia and is part of the Caucasus Mountains. The Caucasus Mountains were formed by the northward collision of the Arabian Plate with the Eurasian Plate. Mount Elbrus was formed over 2.5 million years ago and was most active during the Holocene Epoch.

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A study shows mariners in the Bering Strait are following 2018 shipping guidelines, showing quiet U.S.-Russia cooperation despite strained ties. The Bering Strait is the northernmost part of the Pacific Ocean, separating Asia (Russia) and North America (United States). It lies just south of the Arctic Circle and connects the Bering Sea to the Chukchi Sea of the Arctic Ocean. At its narrowest point, Russia and the U.S. are only 85 km apart, between Cape Dezhnev and Cape Prince of Wales. The strait is shallow with an average depth of 50 m and contains islands like St. Lawrence and the Diomede Islands.

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The Pong Dam, also called the Beas Dam, recently saw water levels breaching the danger mark in Himachal Pradesh. It is an earth-fill embankment dam built on the Beas River in the Shivalik hills of Kangra district, Himachal Pradesh. The dam was constructed between 1961 and 1974 and was the tallest of its type in India at that time. It serves purposes of irrigation and hydroelectric power generation. The dam created an artificial lake named Maharana Pratap Sagar.

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Ships of Indian Navy’s First Training Squadron (1TS), INS Tir and ICGS Sarathi, reached Réunion Island, while INS Shardul arrived in Port Louis, Mauritius, during training deployment. Réunion Island is a French territory in the Western Indian Ocean. Réunion is volcanic, with rugged mountains and short torrential rivers like Marsouins and Galet. It has the highest peak in the Indian Ocean, Piton des Neiges, and an active volcano, Piton de la Fournaise. The capital is Saint-Denis, on the northern coast.

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Recently, Tanzania stopped a large-scale soda ash mining project at Lake Natron to protect its ecosystem. Lake Natron is a salt lake on the Tanzania–Kenya border, part of the Great Rift Valley. It was designated as a Ramsar Site of International Importance in 2001. It is the only reliable breeding ground for Lesser Flamingos in Africa, hosting 75% of the world’s population. The proposed mining project by Ngaresero Valley Company threatened flamingos, fragile hydrology, and the livelihoods of 65,000 Maasai pastoralists. Government allowed only small-scale traditional soda ash collection and emphasized sustainable ecotourism as the future.

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Recently, India bagged an exploration contract from the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to explore polymetallic sulphides in the Carlsberg Ridge of the northwest Indian Ocean. This is the first such global licence, signed in Delhi on September 15, 2025, between ISA (Jamaica-based) and India. Polymetallic sulphides are deep ocean rocks rich in manganese, cobalt, nickel and copper. Carlsberg Ridge is a mid-oceanic ridge and a divergent plate boundary in the Indian Ocean. It extends from the triple junction of the African, Indian, and Australian plates (Mid-Indian Ridge) northwest to the Gulf of Aden. It separates the Arabian Sea in the northeast from the Somali Basin in the southwest.

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Recently, environmentalists raised concerns over unchecked tourism and construction in the Mahendragiri Hills of Odisha, despite its Biodiversity Heritage Site status since 2022. It is located in Gajapati district at 1,501 meters elevation. It is part of the Eastern Ghats. The hills host 1,348 plant species and 388 animal species, including many endemic and threatened ones. Culturally, they are linked to the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and believed to be the site of Lord Parashurama’s penance.

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Recently, more than 1,200 earthquakes around Greece’s Santorini Island showed that Santorini and Kolumbo volcano share an underground magma reservoir. The Santorini and Kolumbo volcanoes are located in Greece, in the southern Aegean Sea, forming part of the Hellenic Volcanic Arc. Seismic and GPS data (2024–25) proved both volcanoes are interconnected through a common magma system. This is the first scientific evidence of their magmatic link, complicating eruption forecasting and highlighting the need for real-time monitoring. Both lie in the Hellenic Volcanic Arc, one of Europe’s most active volcanic zones, critical for global disaster management studies.