Best photos of October 8: Vote counting in Kashmir to Northern Lights in Canada

The National picks the most striking images from around the world

A polling official holds a sealed electronic voting machine as ballots are counted in the local government election in Indian-controlled Kashmir, on the outskirts of Srinagar. AP

A sculpture of Poseidon stands in the ocean before the arrival of Hurricane Milton, in Progreso, Yucatan state, Mexico. AP

Farouk Bouasker, left, head of Tunisia's High Independent Authority for Elections, announcing that President Kais Saied had secured a second five-year term, in Tunis. EPA

The cruise ship Brilliance of the Seas enters the Miraflores Locks in the Panama Canal. Reuters

Destruction in Gerton, North Carolina, as Hurricane Helene sweeps across the south-eastern US. AFP

People cross a road in the business district in Beijing. AFP

Paramedics from the volunteer medical battalion Hospitallers treat Ukrainian servicemen wounded in fighting in the Donetsk region on a medical evacuation bus heading to a hospital. AFP

The aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, illuminate the sky above an old grain elevator in Brant, Alberta, Canada. Reuters