Parts of the Great Barrer Reef have suffered the highest coral mortality on record, Australian research showed Tuesday, with scientists fearing the rest of it has suffered a similar fate.

The Australian Institute of Marine Science said surveys of 12 reefs found up to 72 percent coral mortality, thanks to a summer of mass bleaching, two cyclones, and flooding.

In one northern section of the reef, about a third of hard coral had died, the “largest annual decline” in 39 years of government monitoring, the agency said.

Often dubbed the world’s largest living structure, the Great Barrier Reef is a 1,400-mile expanse of tropical corals that house a stunning array of biodiversity.

But repeated mass bleaching events have threatened to rob the tourist drawcard of its wonder, turning banks of once-vibrant corals into a sickly shade of white.

Bleaching occurs when water temperatures rise and the coral expels microscopic algae, known as zooxanthellae, to survive.

If high temperatures persist, the coral can eventually turn white and die.

This year had already been confirmed as the fifth mass bleaching on the reef in the past eight years.

But this latest survey also found a rapid-growing type of coral — known as acropora — had suffered the highest rate of death.

This coral is quick to grow, but one of the first to bleach.

Lead researcher Mike Emslie told public broadcaster ABC the past summer was “one of the most severe events” across the Great Barrier Reef, with heat stress levels surpassing previous events.

“These are serious impacts. These are serious losses,” he said.

World Wildlife Fund-Australia‘s head of oceans, Richard Leck, said the initial surveys confirmed his “worst fears.”

“The Great Barrier Reef can bounce back but there are limits to its resilience,” he said. “It can’t get repeatedly hammered like this. We are fast approaching a tipping point.”

Leck added the area surveyed was “relatively small” and feared that when the full report was released next year “similar levels of mortality” would be observed.

He said the findings reinforced Australia’s need to commit to stronger emission reduction targets of at least 90 percent below 2005 levels by 2035 and move away from fossil fuels.

The country is one of the world’s largest gas and coal exporters and has only recently set targets to become carbon neutral.

A man has pleaded guilty in the killings of a Georgia couple who were lured to their deaths nearly a decade ago, authorities say, after someone magnet fishing in a creek reeled in a rifle and other evidence linked to the cold case.

Ronnie Jay Towns pleaded guilty to the 2015 murders of Bud and June Runion and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, Telfair County Sheriff Sim Davidson said in a statement Monday. 

The conclusion to the case came just months after someone using a magnet to fish in a Georgia creek pulled up a rifle as well as some of the Runions’ belongings in the same area where the couple was found murdered. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in April that driver’s licenses, credit cards and other items pulled from Horse Creek were “new evidence” in the murder case.

Officials said then that the magnet fisher had discovered a .22-caliber rifle — the same caliber as the gun used to kill the Runions. When the magnet fisher returned to the same spot two days later, they found a bag containing a cellphone, driver’s licenses and credit cards, which investigators said had belonged to Bud and June Runion.

The couple’s bodies were discovered off a county road in January 2015 and authorities said they had been robbed. Investigators said at the time that their bodies and their car had been found in three different locations, CBS affiliate WMAZ-TV reported.

Investigators said Towns lured the couple by replying to an online ad posted by 69-year-old Bud Runion seeking a classic car, though Towns didn’t actually own the car. Authorities said the couple drove three hours from their home in Marietta to Telfair County to look at the vehicle. They never returned.

Towns was eventually charged in the killings but his trial was delayed multiple times — once because too few jurors reported for jury duty when prosecutors took it to a grand jury, WMAZ-TV reported. He was indicted again in 2020, but the case was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, after the new evidence was pulled from the creek, Towns pleaded guilty and is now set to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

“We are thankful to have closure in this case, and our prayers are with both families,” Sheriff Davidson said Monday.

People magnet fishing have pulled in other unexpected items in recent months. In June, a New York City couple said they used a magnet to reel in a safe containing two stacks of waterlogged $100 bills. The month before that, a magnet fisher reeled in a human skull padlocked to an exercise dumbbell from a New Orleans waterway.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Taipei, Taiwan — Numerous children were injured by a vehicle outside an elementary school in central China’s Hunan province on Tuesday, reports said. Hours after the incident, the casualty count was unclear and authorities had yet to clarify if it was an accident or a deliberate attack. The incident follows a series of recent killings or attacks in China by people in vehicles or wielding knives, including others at schools.

Students were arriving for classes around 8 a.m. at Yong’an Elementary School in the city of Changde when a small white SUV drove into a crowd of children and adults, according to state media. Few details were released, reflecting China’s reflexive inclination to suppress news about crime, protests and major accidents that could erode public confidence in the ruling Communist Party’s self-declared ability to maintain social order.

Several adults were also injured, the official Xinhua News Agency said, adding that the driver was subdued by parents and security guards and some of the injured were immediately sent to the hospital.

Police in the city’s Dingcheng district, where the school is located, issued a statement saying no one had life-threatening injuries and identifying the driver as a 39-year-old man surnamed Huang, who was under detention. It said the incident was under investigation but gave no word on the cause or other details.

Footage posted on Chinese social media showed the injured lying on the road while terrified students ran past the gate and inside the schoolhouse.

Comments on Chinese internet sites reflected anger and frustration with recurring incidents of violence against citizens by those venting anger at society.

While China has much lower rates of violence than many countries — personal gun ownership there is illegal — knifings and the use of homemade explosives still occur.

Chinese schools have been subject to numerous attacks by people armed with knives or using vehicles as weapons. A stabbing attack at a vocational school in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi on Saturday left eight people dead and 17 others injured.

That came shortly after a man drove his car into people at a sports facility in the southern city of Zhuhai, leaving 35 people dead and 43 others injured.

In September, three people were killed in a knife attack in a Shanghai supermarket, and 15 others were injured. Police said at the time that the suspect had personal financial disputes and came to Shanghai to “vent his anger.”

The same month, a Japanese schoolboy died after being stabbed on his way to school in the southern city of Shenzhen.

The Chinese government generally censors internet content it deems overly sensitive or political, and some images of the school incident were quickly taken down. Most Western social media sites and search engines like Google are blocked in China, limiting available content even while some people use tools like VPNs and send news through Chinese social media before the censors have time to catch it.