Over the last ten years, thrifting has grown from Salvation Army drop-off boxes to Instagram accounts dedicated to reselling vintage clothes.

The fashion industry is changing, with dedicated thrift and vintage stores run online at the forefront of the evolution.

A study carried out by second-hand outlet Reluv in 2021 claimed at least 72 per cent of Australians purchased a second-hand item in the previous 12 months. 

At least 52 per cent of shoppers bought clothes from op-shops like Vinnies, 33 per cent used online platforms and 15 per cent thrifted at markets or dedicated vintage stores.

The demand for online, accessible thrift stores has never been higher. Just last year, US online second-hand designer goods store The Real Real made close to US$300million through solely online sales.

Vintage fashion's new face

Cara Weinstock always had a love for fashion, but as an 18-year-old high school student she couldn't afford expensive, high-quality items.

So she turned to thrifting instead. Sifting through piles of clothes at markets and op shops paid off – and she quickly realised she could sell rare items she found while thrifting. 

"I got to a point where I was buying stuff that I knew wouldn't fit me, but they were such good deals… like $20 for a second-hand Versace dress… who wouldn't?" she said. 

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After a corporate detour as a practising lawyer, she opened up her second-hand vintage store on Instagram in 2012. Eleven years later, she has 24.9K Instagram followers.

Instagram has become a popular platform for vintage thrift stores to promote their clothes, but for Weinstock, she had no other option.

"That (Instagram) was it, in 2012 that was the big social media platform to promote a fashion business on," she said.

"Instagram at that point was really a great tool for promoting a business, it was a lot easier to grow organically and reach an audience. I think now it's a lot harder to do that."

She also opened a website but continued to use Instagram to promote her store. Today, Cara Mia Vintage has become one of the most reliable places to shop for second-hand designer in Australia.

The store is completely run online, with the rare pop-up shop appearing every so often. When Cara Mia Vintage started, it was one of the first vintage stores to break through to the online market.

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https://www.instagram.com/p/Ckg9KJaPH8m/

"I have experimented with other apps, I think the best way to do it is to maintain your own website and to use Instagram as a promotional tool," she said.

"If you decide to sell solely on Depop for example, what happens if one day Depop decides to shut down your account? It's the same thing with Instagram."

Now, there are hundreds of dedicated vintage and second-hand shops in Australia, with most of them using social media as a means of advertising.

"Social media has made it easier for people to access affordable and second-hand fashion," Weinstock said.

"It's even good for educating people on brands they might not have heard of before…that information is more accessible now."

Thrifting's role in combating fast fashion 

In 2018, the fashion industry was responsible for 4 per cent of the world's total carbon emissions – that's more carbon released than the whole of the United Kingdom, Germany and France combined, Reluv Reports.

Upcoming designer and founder of sustainable slow fashion brand Jas the Label, Jasmine Ypermachou, says that thrifting is key to stopping fast fashion's environmental damage.

"Thrifting starts a circular fashion model and allows for discarded fast and slow fashion pieces to be re-used and repurposed by others," she said.

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https://www.instagram.com/p/CjC6Wd7rKJx/

"When we feel a piece is no longer 'our style' or lacks timelessness, thrifting allows for fast fashion pieces to hold more value and it means less clothing items are being bought, slowing the damaging fast fashion cycle."

The Australian fashion industry is the second biggest consumer of textiles and clothing in the world. Each Australian sends about 23 kilograms of clothing to landfill annually, totalling over 800,000 tonnes of clothes going to waste every year, Reluv reports.

A YouGov study showed that at least 24 per cent of Aussies have worn an item only once before throwing it out.

Affordability 

Over the past five years, dedicated vintage and thrift shops have disrupted the fashion industry. In 2022, the antiques and used goods market racked in an estimated $3.1 billion and saw a 2.2 per cent growth from 2018, according to IBISWorld.

However, the increased demand for good-quality second-hand clothing has seen the price point of thrifted items increase significantly over the last decade.

To help meet demand, St Vincent de Paul Society today opened its first inner-city store in over ten years in Surry Hills.

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NSW acting chief executive of St Vinnies, Yolanda Saiz told the Sydney Morning Herald that the new store with help meet demands while providing to vulnerable communities.

"It's more significant than just the commercial presence, it's about social presence. We're a place that people turn to for help, and we will never walk away from that," she said.

Just last November, The Guardian reported that low-income families may struggle to find affordable clothes in op shops due to the increased demand and the cost of living prices affecting traditional thrift stores.

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"I do think the situation has changed – it's harder to find high-quality vintage clothes for decent pricing today, it's not impossible but it is harder", Weinstock said.

Ypermachou said consumers should be conscious of lower-income families when thrifting or reselling items.

"Just have more awareness for those in need about the options they have and create safe spaces online to share with these communities," she said.

"There are so many second-hand circles and online groups to be a part of, where second-hand clothes are sold for cheap."

Even if thrifting is not for you, consumers can still minimise their carbon footprint by purchasing new clothes in an environmentally conscious way.

"You don't need to be buying 50 pieces of fast fashion, buy less but buy better quality that will last you longer," Weinstock said.

Lotto winner to splash cash on family and pets

Police have formed an emotional guard of honour for a serving dog who died unexpectedly over the holiday period. 

Police dog Dravec, aged five, died while off-duty on December 26 after serving on NSW Police's Dog Unit for almost six years.

Police officers from the Dog Unit, Mounted Unit and Tactical Operations Unit said goodbye to their beloved colleague in a special memorial service in Caringbah today.

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Dravec, a Belgian Malinois, spent most of his time on the force in the Wollongong and Illawarra areas, south of Sydney.

He also worked alongside the Tactical Operations Unit, helping police with counter-terrorism and other special operations.

The cause of Dravec's death is still unknown. 

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Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has responded to accusations he encouraged "fascist fanatics" to storm Brazil's Congress and other major institutions.

Bolsonaro supporters who refuse to accept his election defeat stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace yesterday (overnight AEDT), a week after the inauguration of his leftist rival, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Thousands of demonstrators bypassed security barricades, climbed on roofs, smashed windows and invaded all three buildings, which were believed to be largely vacant on the weekend. Some of the demonstrators called for a military intervention to either restore the far-right Bolsonaro to power or oust Lula from the presidency.

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Hours went by before control of the buildings on Brasilia's vast Three Powers Square was re-established, with hundreds of the participants arrested.

In a news conference from Sao Paulo state, Lula accused Bolsonaro of encouraging the uprising by those he termed "fascist fanatics" and he read a freshly signed decree for the federal government to take control of security in the federal district.

"There is no precedent for what they did and these people need to be punished," Lula said.

TV channel Globo News showed protesters wearing the green and yellow colours of the national flag that also have come to symbolise the nation's conservative movement and were adopted by Bolsonaro's supporters.

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Bolsonaro hits back at accusations

The former president has repeatedly sparred with Supreme Court justices, and the room where they convene was trashed by the rioters. They sprayed fire hoses inside the Congress building and ransacked offices at the presidential palace. Windows were broken in all of the buildings.

Bolsonaro, who flew to Florida ahead of Lula's inauguration, repudiated the president's accusation hours later. He wrote on Twitter that peaceful protest is part of democracy but vandalism and invasion of public buildings are "exceptions to the rule".

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https://twitter.com/jairbolsonaro/status/1612242019564548097

Hundreds of people arrested

Police fired tear gas in their efforts to recover the buildings, and were shown on television in the late afternoon marching protesters down a ramp from the presidential palace with their hands secured behind their backs. By early evening, with authorities' control of the buildings restored, Justice Minister Flavio Dino said in a news conference that roughly 200 people had been arrested and officers were firing more tear gas to drive away lingering protesters.

But with the damage already done, many in Brazil were questioning how the police had ignored abundant warnings, were unprepared or were somehow complicit.

Lula said at his news conference there was "incompetence or bad faith″ on the part of police, and that they had been likewise complacent when Bolsonaro supporters rioted in the capital weeks ago. He promised those officers would be punished and expelled from the corps.

Echoes of January 6 US Capitol riots

The incident recalled the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol by supporters of then-president Donald Trump. 

Political analysts have warned for months that a similar storming was a possibility in Brazil, given that Bolsonaro has sown doubt about the reliability of the nation's electronic voting system — without any evidence. The results were recognized as legitimate by politicians from across the spectrum, including some Bolsonaro allies, as well as dozens of foreign governments.

Unlike the 2021 attack in the US, few officials were likely to have been working in the Brazilian Congress and Supreme Court on a Sunday.

US President Joe Biden told reporters that the riots in Brazil were "outrageous." 

His national security adviser Jake Sullivan went a step further on Twitter and said the US "condemns any effort to undermine democracy in Brazil".

https://twitter.com/JakeSullivan46/status/1612196085023526912

Biden later tweeted that he looked forward to continuing to work with Lula, calling the riots an "assault on democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power in Brazil."

Left-wing Democrat Alexandra Oasio-Cortez called for the US to "stop granting refuge to Bolsonaro in Florida", where he was reported to have been since the election.

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1612211900326215681

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly tweeted: "The violent attempts to undermine democracy in Brazil are unjustifiable. President @LulaOficial and the government of Brazil have the full support of the UK."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also said on Twitter that he condemned the assault on Brazil's democratic institutions but he was confident "the will of the Brazilian people and the country's institutions" would be respected.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong are yet to publicly comment on the incident.

Police response criticised

Earlier videos on social media showed a limited presence of the capital's military police; one showed officers standing by as people flooded into Congress, with one using his phone to record images. The capital's security secretariat didn't respond to a request from The Associated Press for comment about the relative absence of the police.

"Brazilian authorities had two years to learn the lessons from the Capitol invasion and to prepare themselves for something similar in Brazil," said Maurício Santoro, political science professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. 

"Local security forces in Brasilia failed in a systematic way to prevent and to respond to extremist actions in the city. And the new federal authorities, such as the ministers of justice and of defence, were not able to act in a decisive way."

Federal District Governor Ibaneis Rocha confirmed on Twitter he had fired the capital city's head of public security, Anderson Torres. Local media reported that Torres is currently in the US.

The office of Lula's attorney-general asked the Supreme Court to order Torres' imprisonment.

Bolsonaro supporters have been protesting Lula's electoral win since October 30, blocking roads, setting vehicles on fire and gathering outside military buildings, urging the armed forces to intervene. 

The head of Brazil's electoral authority rejected the request from Bolsonaro and his political party to nullify ballots cast on most electronic voting machines.

"Two years since January 6, Trump's legacy continues to poison our hemisphere," US Senator Bob Menendez, who chairs the Senate's foreign relations committee, tweeted, adding that he blamed Bolsonaro for inciting the acts. 

"Protecting democracy and holding malign actors to account is essential."

Every year thousands of companies make their way to Las Vegas for the biggest tech show in the world – the Consumer Electronics Show, known as CES.

Up to 100,000 attendees, including media from around the world, walk around huge convention centres to find the next big thing.

While there are plenty of nifty things, interesting things and really useful things, there are also groundbreaking and eye-opening things.

These are my top five innovations and gadgets from CES 2023.

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LG OLED M – Wireless TV (almost)

Before the show had even started, I was taken to a private suite in the Mandalay Bay hotel to get a preview of what LG had planned for the show – and they did not disappoint.

Having missed the chance to show off at CES 2022 when the company chose not to exhibit at the first show back after COVID-19, LG came back with a bang.

The LG Signature OLED M is a huge 97-inch OLED TV with a vital difference to any other on the market: wireless inputs.

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When it comes to Australia, expect 77-inch, 83-inch and 97-inch options at prices that will no doubt be far beyond the regular OLEDs at those sizes, but for the chance to put your TV anywhere in the room.

You can also design a room around a screen but not all the clutter that comes from Xbox, PlayStations, Fetch or Foxtel boxes and more, making this a game changer.

Basically, this TV has a power cord and nothing else.

Then, somewhere else in the room, you put the "guts" of the TV which has the antenna, HDMI, USB and ethernet ports on it.

That box can be 10m away, or more, but it does work best with line of sight to the screen.

Transmitting a picture in 4K at 120Hz is remarkable, and while it's not for everyone, for those looking to design a room without the traditional entertainment unit, it's amazing.

READ MORE: The top three tech stories of 2022

Mercedes Vision EQXX

Announced one year ago, the Vision EQXX was Mercedes' electric test model.

While the company has various electric cars in its range, it wanted to build a concept that could push the boundaries of what we know about EVs today – in particular the range you could travel on one charge.

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On show at CES, this car was getting lots of attention.

It's stunning.

Thanks to its teardrop and aerodynamic design, its drag coefficient is remarkably low, making it efficient at high speed on the open road.

I was fortunate enough to take a ride in the EQXX, something not many people have done, and it's not just an amazing EV, but a glimpse into the future of Mercedes cars.

The team behind it managed to get 1200km range from what could be classed as a small battery, but also design an in-car dashboard that is staggeringly beautiful and packed with information.

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While I doubt we'll see "this" car on the roads, I can imagine we'll see some great innovations in production electric vehicles from Mercedes in the years ahead.

BMW iVision DEE car

If there's one company you can rely on for a great show at CES, it's BMW.

They do it year after year and deserve credit just for that.

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Last year they had a colour-changing car, which could turn white or grey or black in no time.

Fast forward 12 months and that technology now allows for 32 different colours and with patterns and colours possible, it's amazing what this looks like.

But I have to say, that's not what impressed me.

I was again fortunate enough to sit inside the DEE and get a virtual experience of what was on offer.

While there is a metaverse twist to this all, I am going straight for the technology which we will see in BMW cars from 2025.

And that's one hell of an impressive head-up display.

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Instead of a small window in front of the driver, this new concept shows a digital reflected image on the full width of the windscreen, and around half the height.

What that allows for is much richer driver information, almost removing the need for a dashboard, as well as more across the whole dash.

The best example I saw was a large red warning light across the whole windscreen when a cyclist came into view – the cyclist was highlighted by a square in an augmented reality manner, just like the real world is a video game.

There are amazing opportunities for safety, navigation and other levels of assistance with this technology.

TCL RayNeo X2 AR Glasses

Every time I walked past the TCL Booth at CES, I saw huge crowds around something.

So I reached out to TCL and said: "What is that, and how can I try it?"

On the second to last day, they showed me the RayNeo X2 AR Glasses.

READ MORE: VR 'sunglasses' revealed at CES

Much lighter than I thought, these are comfortable, but turn them on and you get a menu in front of you.

I went straight to translation and asked my host to talk to me in Chinese.

She did, and we had a conversation.

I heard Chinese, I saw in my glasses what she was saying but in English.

I was able to communicate for minutes in a back and forth conversation.

You have to believe me when I tell you I've seen lots of this idea – real-time translation.

But this was the most remarkable version I've ever seen.

Add to that location and navigation, as well as a future for augmented reality with hand gestures, and we're starting to get a real picture of an exciting future.

Samsung's Freestyle Projector Edge Blending

They stole the show with the Freestyle last year, so this year Samsung went twice as good with their Edge Blending technology.

Take two of the new Freestyles, use the SmartThings app and you can play the same picture on both, with one projecting the left side one the right, and they seamlessly and brilliantly merge together.

It's so remarkable for such a small and affordable device – it had to rank a mention.

However, I'm just not sure who needs this.

Trevor Long travelled to Las Vegas with support from LG, Samsung, Hisense, TCL, Boost Mobile and BMW.

Prince Harry has said stereotypes surrounding his wife were a barrier to Prince William and Kate welcoming Meghan to the family in his first of many TV interviews about his extraordinary memoir Spare.

The 95-minute ITV interview, in which the duke has said he "doesn't recognise" his father King Charles III and brother, and that others have asked how he could ever forgive them, has just aired in the UK ahead of this book officially going on sale on Tuesday.

Harry has also spoken of his claims that William floored him during an argument in 2019 in the interview, and tells interviewer Tom Bradbury that he "would like to get (his) brother back".

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Bradbury began the interview by asking Harry why he decided to write the memoir, to which he responds: "Thirty-eight years of having my story told by so many different people, with an intentional spin and distortion".

"It felt like a good time to tell my story and own it for myself," he said.

'I don't recognise my father and my brother'

Prince Harry has spoken about the fractured relationship with his father and brother, telling told Bradby he "doesn't recognise" them at the moment.

"I think there's probably a lot of people who, after watching the documentary and reading the book, will go, how could you ever forgive your family for what they've done?

"People have already said that to me. And I said, forgiveness is 100 per cent a possibility because I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back. At the moment, I don't recognise them, as much as they probably don't recognise me."

But Harry has said he wants "accountability" as well as reconciliation.

"Though I would like to have reconciliation, I would like accountability, I've managed to make peace over this time with a lot of things that have happened," he told Bradby.

"But that doesn't mean that I'm just going to let it go. I've made peace with it, but I still would like reconciliation. And not only would that be wonderful for us, but it would be fantastic for them as well."

He went on to add: "I see a lack of scrutiny to my family towards a lot of the things that have happened in the last year."

He said he hoped they would read his book, but did not believed they would.

"I don't think my father or brother will read the book. I really hope they do, but I don't think they will," he said,

"And with regard to this interview I don't know whether they'll be watching this or not, but what they have to say to me and what I have to say to them will be in private, and I hope it can stay that way."

'They have written countless books' via the media

Bradby asked how Prince Harry could want responses to his book kept in private after he had aired so many private moments via the memoir.

The duke replied: "The level of planting and leaking from other members of the family means that in my mind they have written countless books – certainly millions of words have been dedicated to trying to trash my wife and myself to the point of where I had to leave my country."

"The distorted narrative is that we wanted to leave to go and make money."'

At the beginning of the interview, Prince Harry said he was "fearing" for his life as he left the UK with wife Meghan and son Archie in 2020.

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The 'fab four'

Prince Harry has said the idea of him and his wife Meghan Markle being the "fab four" with the Prince and Princess of Wales was "something the British press created", which "created competition" between the two couples.

"The idea of the four of us being together was always a hope for me. Before it was Meghan, whoever it was going to be, I always hoped that the four of us would get on.

"But, very quickly it became Meghan versus Kate. And that, when it plays out so publicly, you can't hide from that, right?

"Especially when within my family you have the newspapers laid out pretty much in every single palace and house that is around."

The duke said he didn't think his brother and sister-in-law expected him "to get into a relationship with someone like Meghan, someone with a very successful career".

"Some of the ways my brother and sister and law were acting and behaving, that stereotype was causing a bit of a barrier: American, Actress, divorced," he said.

He also told Bradby about the infamous pre-wedding spat between Kate and Meghan.

"Meghan was the one left in tears," he insisted. "What I still to this day, don't know, was what point it was twisted. They were more than happy to put out statements for less volatile things."

He also made reference to a peace meeting between the four held after the 2018 royal wedding.

Prince Harry admitted the discussion did not go the way he had anticipated, with Kate quietly seething over Meghan's jibe about Kate having a "baby brain".

Harry wrote Kate was "gripping the edge of the seat so tightly her fingers were white" during the "awkward" meeting about their frosty relationships.

He went on to tell Bradby that William "parroted" some of the worst tabloid cruelty written about Meghan in the early stages of their marriage.

"'Meg's difficult', he alleged William said. 'She's rude, she's abrasive'."

'Harry and William didn't want Charles to marry Camilla'

Prince Harry has said he and Prince William told their father not to marry Camilla, the Queen Consort.

He recalled them saying, "Please don't marry her, just be together".

"William and I wanted our father to be happy and he seemed to be very, very happy with her. We asked him not to get married. He chose to and that's his decision. But the two of them were and remain very happy together," he said.

Prince Harry added he is now genuinely at peace with their marriage.

Struggles growing up

Prince Harry has spoken about how his memoir reveals his struggles growing up, and his father taking responsibility for them.

"Over dinner one night at Highgrove, Pa and I spoke at some length about what I'd been suffering," the memoir reads.

"I gave him the particulars, told him story after story. Towards the end of the meal he looked down at his plate and said softly "I suppose it's my fault. I should have got you the help you needed years ago".

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"I assured him that it wasn't his fault, but I appreciated the apology."

The book also analyses Charles as a father.

"He'd always given an air of not being quite ready for parenthood: the responsibilities, the patience, the time. Even he, though a proud man, would have admitted as much. But single parenthood? Pa was never made for that. To be fair, he tried," he wrote in Spare.

Touching on the topic, Charles spoke of his affection for Charles during the interview with Bradby.

"Of course, he's my father. I will always love him."

The duke has told how he took drugs, including cocaine, magic mushrooms and marijuana, as a teenager at a country house in his memoir.

Losing his mother

The duke has spoken about his mother Princess Diana's premature death in 1997 after she was in a car crash in a Paris tunnel.

He has told how King Charles III broke the news to him as a child.

"Mummy's been in a car crash," Harry recalled. He thought, "No, no no."

He said he remembers his father telling him: "They tried, darling boy. I'm afraid she didn't make it."

"His voice was soft. He was in shock, it seemed. 'Oh, hospital?' 'Yes, with a head injury.' Did he mention paparazzi? Did he say she'd been chased? I don't think so. I can't swear to it, but probably not."

Harry went on to say he believes "there's a lot of things that are unexplained" about how her death occurred.

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He said he requested he be driven through the tunnel at the same speed as his mother travelled.

"When you've actually experienced the same thing, which you assume your mother's driver was experiencing at the time, then it's really hard to, I guess, understand how some people have come away with the conclusions of that night. And that the people that were predominantly responsible for it, all got away with it."

The interview has aired three years to the day since Harry and Meghan announced they would be quitting their royal roles.

Much of the contents of Harry's memoir have already been leaked to the media after the Spanish version was released five days early.

Queenslanders are being warned to brace for the remains of ex-tropical cyclone Ellie as heavy rainfall continues to move east over the country.

Ellie is currently still over the Northern Territory after wreaking havoc in Western Australia, with falls of 80mm-100mm overnight putting water in the usually-dry Todd River in Alice Springs.

In coming days, the remnant of the system will move to Queensland, bringing widespread rain and thunderstorms to northern, central, and eastern parts of the state, Dean Narramore from the Bureau of Meteorology said.

PRINCE HARRY: 'I would like to get my brother back'

The main centre of the weather activity will be around the tropical north, including Cairns and the Gulf of Carpentaria, reaching south into Longreach and possibly Mackay.

Narramore said this area should see 50mm-100mm of rain but isolated falls of up to 200mm were possible on the coast.

In Victoria, meanwhile, the situation is very different with the state facing high temperatures and a possible heatwave.

Narramore said temperatures between the high 30C and low 40C range would be in place in parts of Victoria, including along the Murray River.

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"That is going to continue all week," he said.

Toward the end of the week, full heatwave conditions could develop across Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia.

"Much of Australia is likely to be in the high 30Cs, low 40Cs, moving towards the weekend and into next week as well," Narramore said.

Indian police have arrested an unruly airline passenger following a complaint by a woman aboard an Air India flight from New York that he urinated on her in business class.

Shankar Mishra was picked up by police in the southern city of Bengaluru and brought to the Indian capital on Saturday, New Delhi Police spokesperson Suman Nalva said on Sunday.

Nalva declined to say what Mishra told investigators after his arrest. The Times of India newspaper cited Mishra as saying that he was drunk and could not believe what he had done.

READ MORE: Tonga volcano lightning shattered 'all records'

A New Delhi court sent him to prison for 14 days as police investigate the complaint accusing Mishra of outraging the modesty of a woman during the New York-New Delhi flight. If convicted, he faces up to three years in prison.

Sugata Bhattacharjee, another passenger on the flight, told reporters he saw Mishra consuming excessive liquor and that Mishra was talking incoherently, asking him the same question about his family several times.

Also Saturday, Air India issued written notices and grounded one pilot and four cabin crew as the incident triggered outrage on social media and among activists who said that banning Mishra from flying for 30 days was not enough.

Air India filed a police complaint this week, though the incident occurred on November 26. It said the crew did not summon police upon landing in New Delhi as they believed that the two had sorted out the issue on their own.

Indian media reports said Air India acted after being pressed by the family of the woman passenger, a senior citizen, to punish Mishra.

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"Air India acknowledges that it could have handled these matters better, both in the air and on the ground and is committed to taking action," said the airline's CEO and managing director Campbell Wilson in a statement.

Meanwhile, Mishra's job as a Mumbai-based executive has been terminated by his employer Wells Fargo & Company, an American multinational financial services company, the firm said in a statement on Friday.

When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted in January 2022, it sent shockwaves around the world.

Not only did it trigger widespread tsunami waves, but it also belched an enormous amount of climate-warming water vapour into the Earth's stratosphere.

Now researchers in a new report have unveiled something else: the eruption set off more than 25,500 lightning events in just five minutes.

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Over the course of just six hours, the volcano triggered nearly 400,000 lightning events.

Half of all the lightning in the world was concentrated around this volcano at the eruption's peak.

The "cataclysmic eruption" shattered "all records", according to the report from Vaisala, an environmental monitoring company that tracks lightning around the world.

"It's the most extreme concentration of lightning that we've ever detected," Chris Vagasky, meteorologist and lightning expert at Vaisala, told CNN.

READ MORE: The explosive truth about supervolcanoes

"We've been detecting lightning for 40 years now, and this is really an extreme event."

The annual report by Vaisala found that 2022 was a year of extremes for lightning. Lightning increased in the US in 2022, with more than 198 million lightning strokes — 4 million more than what was observed in 2021, and 28 million more than 2020.

"We are continuing an upward trend in lightning," Vagasky said.

READ MORE: The Australian cities 'vulnerable' to tsunamis

The World-Wide Lightning Location Network, another lightning monitoring network led by the University of Washington, which is not involved with the report, said Vaisala's findings about global lightning as well as the Hunga volcano are consistent with their own observations.

"We can do this because the stronger eruptions generate lightning, and lightning sends detectable radio signals around the world," Robert Holzworth, the director of the network, told CNN.

"The Hunga eruption was absolutely impressive in its lightning activity."

Researchers have used lightning as a key indicator of the climate crisis, since the phenomenon typically signals warming temperatures.

Lightning occurs in energetic storms associated with an unstable atmosphere, requiring relatively warm and moist air, which is why they primarily occur in tropical latitudes and elsewhere during the summer months.

But in 2022, Vaisala's National Lightning Detection Network found more than 1,00 lightning strokes in Buffalo, New York, during a devastating lake-effect snowstorm that dumped more than 76 centimetres of snow in the city, but piled historic totals in excess of six feet in the surrounding suburbs along Lake Erie.

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Lake-effect snow occurs when cold air blows over warm lake water, in this case from the Great Lakes.

The large difference in temperature can cause extreme instability in the atmosphere and lead to thunderstorm-like lightning even in a snow storm.

The report noted that many of these lightning events happened near wind turbines south of Buffalo, which Vagasky said was significant.

He explained that the ice crystal-filled clouds were lower to the ground than usual, scraping just above the blades of the turbines.

"That can cause what is known as self-initiated upward lightning," Vagasky said. "So the lightning occurs because you have charged at the tip of this wind turbine blade that is really close to the base of the cloud, and it's really easy to get a connection of the electric charge."

This is an area of ongoing research, he said, as the country turns to more clean energy alternatives.

"We're seeing bigger and bigger wind turbines, and certainly as we're putting in more and more wind energy and renewable energy, lightning is going to play a role in that," he said.

The report comes after an unusual year in 2021, when they found lightning strokes increased significantly in the typically frozen Arctic region, which scientists say is a clear sign of how the climate crisis is altering global weather.

"Lightning in polar regions wasn't mentioned [in this year's Vaisala report], but our global lightning network shows a trend for much more lightning in the northern polar regions," Michael McCarthy, research associate professor and associate director of the World Wide Lightning Location Network, told CNN.

"That trend closely tracks the observed average temperature changes over the northern hemisphere.

"This close tracking suggests, but does not prove, a climate change effect," McCarthy added.

Vagasky said lightning in colder areas will only amplify as the planet warms, noting that meteorologists and climatologists have been collecting more data to not only make the climate connections clear but also keep people safe.

"That's why they've named lightning as an essential climate variable," he said, "because it's important to know where it's occurring, how much is occurring, and so you can see how thunderstorms are trending as a result of changing climates."

The man accused of murdering Queensland woman Toyah Cordingley has reportedly claimed he was a witness to the crime.

Rajwinder Singh, who travelled to India days after 24-year-old Cordingley's death in 2018 and was arrested in November, has said he will reveal all the details before an Australian court.

Cordingley's body was found by her father Troy during a search in sand dunes on Wangetti Beach, north of Cairns, in October 2018.

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Singh has said he will also reveal why he left the country soon after Cordingley's death.

He told the Courier Mail he did not kill Cordingley, and that he was an "eye witness to a murder".

Singh has chosen to waive his extradition battle, instead submitting a request to return to Australia.

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The Courier Mail reported that he said he wished for the case to be thoroughly investigated.

Singh had been working as a nurse in Innisfail before leaving the country.