Weather, Deaths | featured news

Organizers shortened the world's fastest luge track Saturday for safety after a crash killed a Georgian Olympian, as athletes prepared for the first day of competition at a Games plagued by warm weather and rain.

At least 76 people have died in flooding and mudslides in Brazil's three largest states over the past four days, O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper reported on Sunday.

Tropical Storm Mirinae unleashed severe flooding in parts of central Vietnam, killing 23 people, leaving two missing and stranding families on rooftops, disaster officials said Tuesday.

Rivers of mud unleashed by heavy rains flood parts of the Sicilian city of Messina, leaving at least 17 people dead and several still missing, Italian officials said Friday.

The earthquake that shook American Samoa nearly knocked John Newton out of bed. Within minutes he knew a tsunami had hit.

The 6.9 magnitude struck at 08:52 a.m. local time Thursday on Sumatra island, about 180 miles from the epicenter of a more powerful quake on Wednesday. Rescue workers used excavators Thursday to pull out victims, some screaming in pain, from the heavy rubble of buildings felled by a powerful earthquake that killed at least 531 people. The death toll was expected to rise.

Officials say 40 people are dead in tropical storm floods in the northern Philippines.

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou said Sunday he accepts responsibility for the government's slow response after Typhoon Morakot slammed into the island killing at more than 120 people and unleashing floods, mudslides and misery.

At least nine people have been killed while 10 others are missing after Typhoon Etau slammed into western Japan, bringing heavy rain and triggering floods and landslides. Japan's metereological agency said Etau packing winds of up to 108kph was moving ...

A cyclone that tore into southern Bangladesh and eastern India has killed at least 168 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless, according to relief workers and news agencies.