blacken

Following a recent attack, plumes of smoke were rising from a massive generator, still ablaze, at the centre of a blackened metal structure, once the heart of the plant.

Dozens of men arrived for the prayers in a show of defiance - their backs turned towards the scorched and blackened wall.

Gio and Roman came out with blackened faces and hands and filthy clothes, beaming.

A hiker clambers across a scorched landscape of ash, his footsteps crunching on charred earth as he peers over a ridge at a burn scar pocked with blackened stumps.

"The fire spread to every corner -- I don't know if any consignment could escape," said one exhausted firefighter, whose uniform was greyed and hands blackened.