Australia’s Great Barrier Reef hit by record bleaching – Times of India
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SYDNEY: Australia's spectacular Great Barrier Reef is experiencing the most widespread bleaching on record, with 73 percent of surveyed reefs damaged.Often dubbed the world's largest living structure, the Great Barrier Reef is a 2,300-kilometre (1,400-mile) long expanse, home to a stunning array of biodiversity including more than 600 types of coral and 1,625 fish species.But aerial surveys conducted by scientists show about 730 out of more than 1,000 reefs spanning the Great Barrier Reef have bleached, government reef authorities said on Wednesday.For the first time, extreme bleaching -- which is when more than 90 percent of coral cover has bleached -- has occurred everywhere on the Great Barrier Reef."The cumulative impacts experienced across the reef this summer have been highe...