"This is a high fatality count," Pickering said. "The extent of the damage and the severity will probably not be very clear until we get the sun in the morning."

The storms, which also injured dozens across the Midwest, spawned at least a half-dozen tornadoes in northeast Arkansas, dropped large, damaging hail and sent thousands of concertgoers in Indianapolis scrambling for cover.

In Missouri, strong winds were blamed for at least two deaths. A 42-year-old man was killed when winds knocked over his mobile home near Circle City, Stoddard County Sheriff Carl Hefner said.

Another man was killed when a tree fell on him as he walked along a trail in Castlewood State Park near Ballwin in St. Louis County, a spokeswoman for St. Louis County police told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

A state of emergency was declared in the southeast Missouri city of Caruthersville after a tornado caused heavy damage there. Details of the damage weren't available.

In Illinois, a 54-year-old man was killed when a clothing store in Fairview Heights, east of St. Louis, collapsed in high winds, police Capt. Nick Gailius said.

Emergency crews were searching the rubble for any additional victims, their progress slowed by a gas leak, Gailius said. Others were injured in the collapse, he said.

The storm also uprooted trees, downed power lines, tipped over semitrailer trucks and caused motorists to lose control of their vehicles, Gailius said.

In Tennessee, the National Weather Service reported that tornadoes were spotted in five counties in Tennessee's northwest corner, and officials said the storms caused extensive damage to buildings.

Softball-sized hail was reported in Arkansas, where half a dozen tornadoes were reported.

A tornado near the northeastern Arkansas town of Marmaduke sent at least 45 people to Arkansas Methodist Medical Center at Paragould, said a spokesman who added that many of the injuries were minor. Authorities closed off all access to Marmaduke, where damage was reportedly very heavy.

Severe thunderstorms also struck Indianapolis as thousands of fans departed a free John Mellencamp concert that was part of the NCAA's Final Four weekend.

Concertgoers scrambled for cover as tornado sirens sounded and sheets of heavy rain lashed the sidewalks and streets, according to television reports.

Weather service radar tracked the powerful thunderstorm with a possible tornado through downtown Indianapolis, meteorologists said. No major injuries were reported.

In Kentucky, tornadoes likely touched down in five counties, according to the National Weather Service. Cars were overturned in Lewisburg, a mobile home flipped near Owensboro and lights were blown off utility poles, officials said.

"It's going to be a mess," said Mike Callahan, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Louisville.

No deaths or major injuries were reported in the state.

Power also was knocked out to more than 300,000 customers in Illinois, Missouri and Indiana.

The rain in North Dakota on Friday was part of a lines of thunderstorms and tornadoes that tore up buildings, knocked down power lines and injured several people as it moved across the Midwest a day earlier.

At least 35 bridges and more than 25 county roads were closed because of flooding in Richland County, south of Fargo, said Tim Schulte, the county's highway engineer. He warned people not to drive around barriers.

"Just because you think the road's there - it might not be," he said.

A 57-year-old woman was found face down in a water-filled ditch along Interstate 29 in Grand Forks County early Friday. She apparently fell into the water after attempting to walk home when her vehicle got stuck on the flooded road, Sheriff's Major Mike Fonder said.

In Indiana, authorities were trying to determine if tornadoes were responsible for damaging homes and businesses Friday night. Storms dropped golfball-sized hail and downed trees and utility poles, authorities said.

The storm damaged several warehouses and outbuildings in the Indianapolis suburb of Greenwood, where downed trees and utility poles cause many power outages, city police Lt. Robert Dine said.

"We've got witnesses who did see a funnel cloud drop out of the sky and do the damage to the houses with roof damage and a lot of damage to the industrial area," he said.

Charlie Mascheck and his family had to dash to safety when the storm tore a wall from their home, exposing a second-floor bedroom and a bathroom.

"All of a sudden we just heard that sound that everybody tells you about," he said. "Realized we were right in the middle of it and everybody ran to the middle of the stairwell and got on top of each other and rode it out. It only lasted maybe a few seconds."

In North Dakota, the rising Red River brought back memories of high water in 1997 that swamped Grand Forks, and caused heavy damage from southern North Dakota to Canada.

The weather service predicted major flooding for the Grand Forks area, saying the river could rise to about 47 feet by next Friday. Flood stage in Grand Forks is 28 feet, but residents are protected by a huge dike project begun after the 1997 disaster.

Residents were being asked to volunteer for sandbag duty to help protect homes threatened by the rising Red River in Fargo.

Dennis Walaker, the city's public works director, said he expected "at least the football team" to join the Saturday's effort to help residents hold back the water.

Even the normally dry Honolulu Airport received more rain in the first three months of 2006 than in all of 2005.

The near biblical downfall left the islands disheveled with debris, flooded homes, and led to a sewage spill in the water off Waikiki.

The largest toll was taken on Kauai, where seven died when a century-old earthen dam strained by the heavy rains burst March 14 sending a wall of water crashing through homes to the sea.

Last week, a sewer line broke when it was overwhelmed by heavy rain and sent some 48 million gallons of raw sewage into the ocean.

But the beaches of Waikiki were open again Saturday, with only a hint of suntan lotion lingering in the air and crowds back on the sand - though fewer than usual in the water.

Sitting on towels with three friends at Waikiki, Susan Orr, of Colby, Kan., said she came to Hawaii in honor of her 50th birthday. It was the last day of their vacation, and the first decent day of sun.

"Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose," she said.

Honolulu was still cleaning up after a massive downpour Friday that sent mud sliding down hills and turned streets into gushing rapids of brown churning water.

Along with flooding homes, the rain sent merchandise floating at Kahala Mall, where waters rushed into a movie theater and inundated 90 shops with more than a foot of water.

Larry Leopardi, division chief of road maintenance for Honolulu, said the spate of rain that began on Feb. 19 has been like living in a hurricane.

"It's one of those storms that keeps giving," said Leopardi, whose crew have been working around the clock seven days a week.

A fifth of the historic city of Olomouc, in the east of the Czech Republic, was inundated when an embankment holding back the raging Morava gave way during the early hours of Sunday.

In Hungary, Budapest's mayor urged the government to declare a state of emergency for those parts of the city most threatened by the Danube and ban traffic on the river.

Olomouc city council ordered the evacuation of a further 2,000 people Sunday afternoon although the danger to the city of 100,000 inhabitants appeared to be subsiding with the embankment repaired and the river level stabilising.

In the south-east, the South Moravian governor ordered 4,000 people to quit a handful of villages menaced by a 500-hectare (1,235 acre) lake on Sunday afternoon.

The lake, fed by local rivers, has been developing on low lying farmland over the last days.

In the north of the country, streams and rivers continued to swell the Elbe which climbed to 8.46 metres (28 feet), more than four times its normal level, by noon Sunday with no respite expected before Monday.

The regional authority declared a state of emergency for the entire length of the river from 40 kilometres north of Prague to the German border on Saturday.

Flood emergency situations had been announced by half of the country's 14 regional authorities by the end of Saturday.

Authorities warned that higher temperatures, thawing snow which still carpets mountains across the country, could dramatically worsen the situation. Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek was cautious on Sunday.

"Everything depends on weather conditions and here there is still a lot of uncertainty," he told public television.

In Hungary, the highest level flood alerts were in force on 600 kilometres (370 miles) of river in the country on Sunday with the number of evacuees mounting to 3,704, according to the national disaster prevention authority.

The worst affected areas were in the north of the country, bordering Slovakia. Road and rail transport across the country was disrupted.

In Slovakia, river levels remained critical although the risk appeared to be easing. A state of emergency was declared Saturday at Trtice in the south-west of the country after the Cierna Voda reached a dangerous level.

In Austria, the level of the Danube and of many rivers in the north of the country remained at a critical situation over the weekend without, however, requiring people to flee their homes.

The Czech Cabinet was due to hold an emergency meeting to assess the flood risk and what new measures could be taken to help stricken areas.

Damien Personnaz, a UNICEF spokesman, said that rain in parts of the Oromia region had raised the spectre of diarrhea and malaria, which can be deadly among already vulnerable populations.

There is a "cruel irony" in the situation, he told reporters.

The brief showers have not been enough to undo the damage of two failed rainy seasons in the parched lowland region on the southern border with Kenya.

Malnutrition rates there are "alarming", with 56,000 youngsters aged under five at risk, and livestock deaths continue to climb, said Personnaz.

But there has still been enough rain to form shallow pools near villages, which are potential breeding grounds for malaria.

Rain water is also washing through piles of dead animals near many communities, and flowing on to pollute the few remaining water sources, said UNICEF in a statement.

Anyone drinking from the pools and the polluted sources risks catching waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, which is often relatively mild in wealthy countries but potentially fatal when it strikes a malnourished population with very little access to health facilities.

An estimated 1.7 million Ethiopians are struggling to survive the drought which is affecting the whole Horn of Africa including Kenya, Somalia and Djibouti.

Despite the recent showers, forecasters say that the April rainy season is again expected to fail.

"The search and rescue operation is over, and we have started to house the survivors in the tents. Some 70 percent of the families have got their tents, and the rest will receive theirs by nightfall," Iranian deputy interior ministry Mohammad Baqir Zolqadr told state television.

Most of the parks in Brujerd and the provincial capital, Khoramabad were packed with people who had dragged blankets and other necessities with them in the expectation of enduring more aftershocks.

The Iranian Red Crescent announced that it has handed out 10,000 tents and another 15,000 are needed which will delivered by nightfall.

Local women were seen sitting in a circle, crying as they wailed for the loss of their loved ones, covering their heads with mud, and scratching their nails into their tear-stained faces.

Such mourning ceremonies are unique to the area.

"I wish I were killed with my sheep and cows," shouted the wailing Hossein Mousivand, 60, from a village close to the city of Burjerd.

According to local officials, the areas hit most by the quakes were villages between Brujerd and Doroud, which have a population of around 200,000 people. About 330 villages suffered 40 to 100 percent damage, according to officials.

"I lost all my livelihood, I had 140 sheep and cows, now I am left with a destroyed farm and only 50 animals," Mousivand, hitting his head against the only standing pillar in his ravaged farm, told an AFP photographer.

Zolqadr said that the people's most urgent needs were "food and sanitation" with Iran's volunteer Basij militia distributing bread, bottled mineral water, and conserved food.

He said there was as yet no sign of a risk of epidemic from the death of domestic animals: "We are disinfecting the area where animal carcasses have been found."

According to a local agriculture official in Brujerd more than a thousand sheep, cows and goats have been killed in the quake in his area.

Around 500 people from villages under the city of Brujerd's jurisdiction protested in front of the city's governor office, demanding blankets, tents and food, state news agency IRNA reported.

Zolqadr also said that 15,000 homes were affected in the area and they have planed to furnish all of them with tents.

The quake struck at 4:47 am (0117 GMT) following two others measuring 4.7 and 5.1, Iranian television quoted the National Seismological Institute as saying.

According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Iranian Red Crescent has sent 100 rescue teams, or a total of around 300 people, to the affected areas.

Interior ministry public relations director Mojtaba Mir-Abdollahi told AFP hours after the quake that survivors were in urgent need of food, blankets and medical supplies, but he added that there was "no need" for international aid.

Despite acute tension over Tehran's nuclear program and neighboring Iraq, US President George W. Bush made a point of offering sympathy and assistance.

"We obviously have differences with the Iranian government but we do care about the suffering of Iranian people," he said while at a North American summit in Mexico.

Iran sits astride several major faults in the earth's crust, and is prone to frequent earthquakes, many of them devastating.

The worst quake in recent times hit Bam in the south of the country in December 2003, killing 31,000 people, about a quarter of the city's population, and destroying the city's ancient mud-built citadel.

The first was found dead Wednesday morning at Vero Beach. The others were discovered on Hutchinson Island later that day, said Steven McCulloch, executive director of marine mammal research and conservation at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution.

"It's been kind of a wild goose chase, and we're not sure it's over yet," McCulloch said.

All of the melon-headed whales, also known as electra dolphins, were about 7 to 9 feet long and appeared thin and malnourished, said Greg Bossart, director of marine mammal research and conservation at Harbor Branch, a research facility north of Fort Pierce.

Necropsies showed that the animals had ulcers in their stomachs, a sign of stress, and had not eaten for weeks.

The study, by consulting firm CNW Marketing Research in Bandon, Ore., analyzed hundreds of variables that contribute to energy costs-including the fuel they burn while being driven–into an index that measures the energy cost per mile for more than 300 vehicles. All five hybrids on the list-the Toyota Prius, the Honda Accord and Civic hybrids, the Honda Insight, and the Ford Escape hybrid–perform below average. For all vehicles, the average was $2.28 of energy consumption per mile. The Prius hybrid came in at $3.25 per mile, even though it is one of the highest-mileage cars in the world, getting about 45 miles per gallon in real-world driving. The Honda Accord hybrid consumed $3.30 of energy per mile, about the same as the hulking Ford Excursion SUV. The conventional Accord came in at just $2.18 per mile.

The data don't change anything about the equation an average buyer faces when deciding whether a hybrid makes financial sense. Hybrids typically cost about $2,000 to $3,000 more than similarly equipped conventional models. They get better mileage, but in normal driving it takes about seven years before the savings at the pump offset the higher price.

But for car buyers concerned about the overall environmental implications of the car they choose to drive, the CNW study should cause some rethinking. There's not a single hybrid among the 10 most energy-efficient cars, for instance. But the Scion xB, at the top of the list, requires just 48 cents of energy per mile-about one seventh as costly as a Prius–and the Ford Escort, at No. 2, just 57 cents. At the other end of the list, there are few surprises. The $380,000 Maybach ultraluxe chariot is the least energy-efficient vehicle, requiring $11.58 worth of energy per mile.

The top and bottom 10:

Most energy efficient	Cost per mile
Scion xB	$0.48
Ford Escort	$0.57
Jeep Wrangler	$0.60
Chevrolet Tracker	$0.69
Toyota Echo	$0.70
Saturn Ion	$0.71
Hyundai Elantra	$0.72
Dodge Neon	$0.73
Toyota Corolla	$0.73
Scion xA	$0.74

Least energy efficient	Cost per mile
Maybach	$11.58
VW Phaeton	$11.21
Rolls-Royce	$10.66
Bentley	$10.56
Audi Allroad Quattro	$5.60
Audi A8	$4.96
Audi A6	$4.96
Lexus LS 430	$4.73
Porsche Carrera GT	$4.53
Acura NSX	$4.45

Source: CNW Marketing Research