التصنيف: أخبار

A Jacques Azagury gown worn by Princess Diana in 1985 has broken a new fashion record after selling for 11 times its estimated price.

The black velvet evening dress had been estimated to sell for around $100,000 (£78,776) when it went under the hammer at Julien’s Auctions in Hollywood.

However, it fetched a staggering $1,148,080 (£904,262) – making it the most expensive dress worn by the late princess to be sold at auction.

The previous record holder, a 1991 Victor Edelstein velvet gown, sold for $604,800 at an auction in January.

The most expensive item of clothing ever worn by Diana remains her iconic black sheep jumper, which fetched a staggering $1.14m (£920,000) in a Sotheby’s auction in New York in September.

Diana initially donned the frock in Italy in 1985 while on a royal tour with her then-husband, Charles, and again to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in 1986.

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The collector’s item was constructed with fabric chosen by world-renowned textile merchant Jakob Schlaepher and featured metallic embroidered stars carefully threaded by the design team at Jacques Azagury.

The ballerina skirt was considered a nod to her patronage of the English National Ballet and her love of dance.

Also on sale at the auction was a pink crepe blouse worn by Diana for her engagement portrait in 1981.

It sold for $381,000 (£300,990) – nearly four times its original estimate of $80,000 (£63,000).

A Givenchy dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the 1963 comedy Charade, a sleeveless gown worn by Gloria Swanson in the 1950 noir film Sunset Boulevard and Barbra Streisand’s sailor dress from a 1960s special called My Name Is Barbra were also sold at the event.

Molten rock has been spewing spectacularly from fissures in the ground after a volcano erupted in Iceland following weeks of intense earthquake activity.

The Icelandic Meteorological Office has said the lava is emerging from a crack in the earth’s surface which was around 3.5km (2 miles) long and had grown rapidly.

An evacuation had already taken place in recent days, moving nearly 4,000 people out of the fishing town of Grindavik in the country’s southwest, as fears grew of an eruption from the Reykjanes peninsula.

There have been several eruptions in unpopulated areas in the peninsula in recent years, but the current outbreak was believed to pose an immediate risk to the town, authorities have said.

The Icelandic Met Office said: “Seismic activity together with measurements from GPS devices indicate that the magma is moving to the southwest and the eruption may continue in the direction of Grindavik.”

Vidir Reynisson, head of Iceland’s civil protection and emergency management, told the Icelandic public broadcaster RUV: “The magma flow seems to be at least a hundred cubic meters per second, maybe more.

“So this would be considered a big eruption in this area at least.”

The nearby Blue Lagoon geothermal spa has also been closed as a precaution.

Local police said they had raised their alert level as a result of the outbreak and the country’s civil defence warned the public not to approach the area while emergency personnel assessed the situation.

The Icelandic Meteorological Office said on its website shortly after the eruption on Monday: “Warning: Eruption has started north of Grindavik by Hagafell.”

The international airport in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, which is located nearby, remained open.

British holidaymaker Helen Hope was on a plane waiting for her flight back to Manchester to take off.

She told Sky News: “Most people were intrigued by it. People possibly started worrying more as we were delayed longer. Some passengers noticed it and then people were scrambling to have a look.

“The pilot has been waiting for the ok from various people in charge of safety to check which way the wind and any ash is blowing.”

Iceland was put on high alert for a volcano eruption in November when a state of emergency was declared.

The Reykjanes peninsula, a volcanic and seismic hot-spot around 30 miles southwest of Reykjavik, had been shaken by hundreds of small earthquakes every day for more than two weeks.

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In November, Icelandic authorities were working on a plan to protect the evacuated town of Grindavik from a volcanic eruption.

Scientists believed the most likely site for magma to break through the surface was a short distance from the town, and it could flow towards houses.

But Almannavarnir, the Icelandic civil defence, said earth walls would be built to divert a river of molten lava away from the town.

Located between the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates, among the largest on the planet, Iceland is a seismic and volcanic hotspot as the two plates move in opposite directions.

At least 111 people have been killed after a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck a mountainous region of northwestern China, the country’s state media has said.

It came before the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC) reported that a second earthquake had struck the Xinjiang region in the northwest of the country. It is not yet clear if there have been any deaths of injuries as a result of the second quake.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency has reported that 100 people died after the 6.2 magnitude quake struck the province of Gansu just before midnight local time on Monday.

Another 11 died in the neighbouring province of Qinghai after the quake.

More than 200 people have been injured – 96 in Gansu and 124 in Qinghai, the news agency added.

China’s state broadcaster CCTV reports that President Xi Jinping has called for an all-out search and rescue effort to minimise the number of casualties.

The quake struck in Gansu’s Jishishan county, about three miles from the provincial boundary with Qinghai.

The US Geological Survey has given the earthquake’s magnitude as 5.9.

CCTV reported that water and electricity lines, as well as transportation and communications infrastructure, have been damaged.

Shockwaves were felt in Lanzhou, the Gansu provincial capital, about 1,450 kilometers (900 miles) southwest of the capital of Beijing.

University students there rushed out of their dorms, according to a social media post that had images showing young people standing outside.

Tents, folding beds and quilts were being sent to the disaster area, CCTV said.

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In September 2022 at least 74 people were reportedly killed in a 6.8 magnitude earthquake that shook China’s southwestern province of Sichuan, triggering landslides and shaking buildings in the provincial capital of Chengdu, where 21 million residents were under a COVID-19 lockdown.

China’s deadliest earthquake in recent years was a 7.9 magnitude quake in 2008 that killed nearly 90,000 people in Sichuan.

It devastated towns, schools and rural communities outside Chengdu, leading to a years-long effort to rebuild with more resistant materials.