Abilene Texas Flooding

Deadly Storm Flooding Soaks Ohio After Drenching Upper Midwest

RUSHFORD, Minn. — A powerful storm system that swamped the upper Midwest and killed at least six people moved into Ohio on Tuesday as weary Minnesota residents returned to their water-logged homes. For many, it was a surreal scene.

Orange Xs marked buildings that had been searched for survivors. Canoes lay in the streets. At a campground in Houston County, picnic tables hung from trees.

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Hurricane Dean

FELIPE CARRILLO PUERTO, Mexico — Hurricane Dean swept across the Yucatan Peninsula Tuesday, toppling trees, power lines and houses as it bore down on the heart of Mexico's oil industry. Glitzy resorts on the Mayan Riviera were spared, but vulnerable Mayan villages were exposed to the full fury of one of history's most intense storms.

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Dean Strengthens...

As expected, Dean intensified into the season's first hurricane in the western Atlantic on Thursday morning and now poses a major threat to the central islands of the Lesser Antilles, Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.The system's forecast track would take it well south of Florida, and it's unlikely that it will swing this direction, the National Hurricane Center in Miami-Dade County said.Because of a high pressure area to its north, Dean was taking a determined westerly course toward the Caribbean. It also was projected to intensify into a Category 4 system with winds of almost 140 mph within the next five days.

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Powerful 8.0 Magnitude Earthquake Kills at Least 450 in Peru

ICA, Peru — Rescuers struggled across a shattered countryside on Thursday to reach victims of a magnitude-8 earthquake that killed at least 450 people. About 1,500 people were reported injured.

The center of the destruction was in Peru's southern desert, in the oasis city of Ica and the nearby port of Pisco, about 125 miles southeast of the capital, Lima. Pisco's mayor said at least 200 people were buried in the rubble of a church where they had been attending a service. "The dead are scattered by the dozens on the streets," Mayor Juan Mendoza told Lima radio station CPN.

"We don't have lights, water, communications. Most houses have fallen. Churches, stores, hotels — everything is destroyed," the mayor said, sobbing.

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Tropical Storm Erin Soaks Texas as Hurricane Dean Strengthens to Category 2 Storm

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Tropical Storm Erin's remnants soaked a rain-weary state Thursday, inundating intersections and shutting down freeway ramps ahead of rush hour and killing at least one person as the thunderstorms moved into soggy central Texas. One person was killed and another was injured when a waterlogged roof collapsed at a storage unit at a Houston grocery store, Houston Fire Chief Omero Longoria said.

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Magnitude 7.4 - JAVA, INDONESIA

Magnitude 7.4 Date-Time Wednesday, August 8, 2007 at 17:04:57 (UTC)= Coordinated Universal Time Thursday, August 9, 2007 at 12:04:57 AM = local time at epicenter Location 5.924°S, 107.741°E Depth 282.1 km (175.3 miles) Region JAVA, INDONESIA Distances 110 km (70 miles) ENE of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia115 km (70 miles) N of Bandung, Java, Indonesia130 km (80 miles) NW of Cirebon, Java, Indonesia150 km (90 miles) NE of Sukabumi, Java, Indonesia Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 10 km (6.2 miles); depth +/- 19.6 km (12.2 miles) Parameters Nst= 40, Nph= 40, Dmin=553.8 km, Rmss=1.31 sec, Gp= 36°,M-type=body magnitude (Mb), Version=6 Source USGS NEIC (WDCS-D) Event ID us2007fubd http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2007fubd.php

Monsoon Floods Displace 19 Million, Kill 186 in India and Bangladesh

LUCKNOW, India — Torrents of water washed away homes, crops and cows, leaving hungry and frightened villagers perched in treetops or on roofs as the death toll rose Friday from monsoon rains across northern India and Bangladesh.

Vital to farmers, the annual rains have always been a blessing and a curse in the subcontinent — a fact apparent as ever as officials said at least 186 people have been killed and 19 million driven from their homes in recent days.

Even in areas where the rains are no worse than usual, the monsoon disrupted life. In Mumbai, the country's bustling financial capital, people waded through knee-deep water that covered many streets Friday after severe overnight rains flooded sewers.

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7.3-magnitude quake hits Vanuatu

PORT VILA, Vanuatu, Aug. 1 (UPI) — A major earthquake struck the multi-island nation of Vanuatu early Thursday, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported.

The quake measured 7.3 on the Richter scale, large enough to cause significant damage over a wide area. But the center said there appeared to be no risk of a Pacific-wide tsunami.

Robert Cessaro, a geophysicist with the center, said the epicenter was deep in the Earth, about 90 miles below the surface. The quake was centered about 30 miles southeast of Santo, a central island in the archipelago.

It's a pretty good size, but it's deep and there is no tsunami threat, Cessaro told TVNZ. It's always out to sea.

Vanuatu is a group of more than 80 islands 1,100 miles east of Australia in the South Pacific.