No other details were immediately available.

Even moderate quakes have killed thousands of people in the past in the Iranian countryside where houses are often built of bricks.

In March, three strong earthquakes and several aftershocks jolted western Iran overnight, killing at least 66 people. In February last year, a 6.4-magnitude quake rocked the town of Zarand in southern Iran, killing 612 people and injuring more than 1,400.

Some 26,000 people were killed by a 6.6-magnitude quake that flattened the historic southeastern city of Bam in the same region in 2003.

"We're stretched about as thin as possible," said Jeff Arnberger, assistant fire management officer for the
Bureau of Land Management in Elko, where the largest fires were burning.

"Thankfully our neighbors from around Nevada and across the country are giving us a hand," he said.

The series of fires that threatened 300 homes and businesses at Mound House late Monday night grew to 6,000 acres overnight and looped around Carson City on the eastern front of the Sierra, sending a mile-long snake of fire down a hillside near McClellan Peak.

As many as a 200 homes remained threatened there late Tuesday afternoon as fire crews endured a third consecutive day of temperatures in the 90s, low humidity, strong erratic winds and dry lightning.

Federal fire managers were sending a Type I team - the army of firefighters assigned to national priority fires - to take control of that attack on what they dubbed the "Sierra-Tahoe complex."

"Resources are scarce because of all the other fires in the Western United States right now. But this will make it the highest priority," said Mike Dondero, fire management officer for the Nevada Division of Forestry. "We have about a dozen fires in the Reno-Carson City area."

The 125 square miles of land that has burned since lightning bolts started sparking fires over the weekend amounts to about 80,000 acres.

No structures have burned nor injuries reported so far. But there have been a number of close calls, including 2,800 acres worth of fires that threatened homes in Palomino Valley and Lemmon Valley on the outskirts of north Reno Monday night.

"Everywhere I looked there was just fire after fire, everywhere you turned your head," said Nate Bourne, who helped his wife load their dogs and valuables into a vehicle in preparation to evacuate Lemmon Valley late Tuesday.

"You think that everything you cherish in the world is in that house. It's a scary, scary thought," he told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Guinn issued a proclamation at noon Tuesday declaring a state of emergency statewide,

"The state of Nevada is doing everything possible to assist those battling the large number of wildfires currently raging throughout northern Nevada," he said. He said the declaration will give local governments a leg up in seeking federal assistance to restore depleted firefighting resources given "a significant amount of time remains in the fire season."

Despite continued threats, a number of people returned to their homes and businesses around Mound House, including the Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel.

"The girls were back by two this morning," said a bartender who gave only the name of Wendy. "We're back in business and we've got business."

The biggest fire in northeast Nevada, the Suzie fire, had consumed an estimated 57,000 acres of sagebrush and grass from Carlin about 20 miles west of Elko to a state highway leading out of Elko to the Idaho state line. It closed Interstate 80 for about 3 hours on Monday and nearly doubled in size during the afternoon when a storm cell settled directly over the fire.

Just east of that, the Elburz fire blackened 12,600 acres and the Sneekee fire in the Red Springs Wilderness Study Area 35 miles southwest of Elko was estimated at 6,000 acres of grass and brush.

Eight Clark County firefighters, a wildfire coordinator and two engines were dispatched late Monday to the Elburz fire - a trip of more than 400 miles.

The Sierra Front Interagency Dispatch Center in Minden, Nev., said at least 16 new fires had been reported since the storms passed Monday afternoon through its jurisdiction covering much of western Nevada and northeastern California along the Sierra Nevada.

About 100 miles north of Reno, two other wildfires that began Sunday also continued to burn, including one that had burned about 3,000 acres near Gerlach but was reported to be 70 percent contained Monday night.

On the outskirts of Susanville in northeastern California, a lightning strike sparked a 625-acre blaze, prompting the evacuation of 100 homes Monday, fire officials said. Residents were allowed to return a few hours later, said Jeff Fontana, spokesman for the Susanville Interagency Fire Center. No injuries were reported and no buildings were destroyed and by midday Tuesday, it was 70 percent contained, he said.

About 250 firefighters also were battling 10 separate blazes Tuesday on remote land around Susanville owned by the BLM, Fontana said.

"The biggest is 2,000 acres, the smallest is several acres," he said.

Wilkes-Barre, a city of 43,000 in northeastern Pennsylvania coal-mining country, was devastated by deadly flooding in 1972 from the remnants of Hurricane Agnes. It is protected by levees, and officials said the Susquehanna was expected to crest just a few feet from the tops of the 41-foot floodwalls.

But Luzerne County Commissioner Todd Vonderheid said officials were worried about the effects of water pressing against the levees for 48 hours. The floodwalls were completed just three years ago.

"It is honestly precautionary," Vonderheid said. "We have great faith the levees are going to hold."

An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people in the county of about 351,000 were told to get out by nightfall. The evacuation order applied to more than half the residents of Wilkes-Barre, as well residents of several outlying towns, all of them flooded by Agnes more than three decades ago.

Laura Lockman, 42, of Wilkes-Barre packed a car and planned to clear out along with her husband, three kids and a puppy named Pebbles. They were not ordered to evacuate their brick home, a half-mile from the Susquehanna, but were going to nearby Scranton anyway for the children's safety. Their home was inundated in 1972, when water reached the second floor.

"I just want to get out of here. I just want to be safe, that's all," she said.

A dozen helicopters from the Pennsylvania National Guard, the state police and the Coast Guard were sent on search-and-rescue missions, plucking stranded residents from rooftops in Bloomsburg, Sayre and New Milford. Hundreds of National Guardsmen prepared to distribute ice, water and meals ready to eat.

Flooding closed many roads in the Philadelphia area, including the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

"We lost just about everything - the cars, the clothes, even the baby's crib," said James Adams, who evacuated his family's home near Binghamton, N.Y., after watching their shed float away and their cars get submerged. "I'm not sure what we are going to do."

Elsewhere in the Binghamton area, an entire house floated down the Susquehanna. After touring the region by helicopter, New York Gov. George Pataki estimated that property damage in his state would total at least $100 million.

The soaking weather was produced by a low-pressure system that has been stalled just offshore since the weekend and pumped moist tropical air northward along the East Coast. A record 4.05 inches of rain fell Tuesday at Binghamton. During the weekend, the same system drenched the Washington and Baltimore region with more than a foot of rain.

Although the bulk of the rain moved out of the area Wednesday, streams were still rising from the runoff, and forecasters said more showers and occasional thunderstorms were possible along the East Coast for the rest of the week.

Earlier this week, floodwaters in the nation's capital closed the National Archives, the IRS, the Justice Department and other major government buildings, and toppled a 100-year-old elm tree on the White House lawn. The National Archives, several Smithsonian museums and some government office buildings were still closed Wednesday.

The National Archives moved in giant dehumidifiers to preserve its historic documents. "The threat to the records is not floodwater, but humidity from the lack of air conditioning," spokeswoman Susan Cooper said Wednesday.

An estimated 2,200 people were ordered to evacuate the area around Lake Needwood at Rockville, Md., which was approaching 25 feet above normal. Engineers reported weakened spots on the lake's earthen dam.

A swollen creek carved a 25-foot-deep chasm through all four lanes of Interstate 88, about 35 miles northeast of Binghamton, N.Y., and two truckers were killed early Wednesday when their rigs plunged into the gaps, officials said.

Thousands of people were evacuated from communities across New York state, and whole villages north of Binghamton County were isolated by high water.

Along the Delaware River, more than 1,000 people left low-lying areas of Trenton, N.J., and state employees in buildings along the river left work early.

Trenton's water filtration system was shut down because of debris floating down the Delaware, and Mayor Doug Palmer called for conservation, saying the city had only about two days of drinkable water. The river was expected to crest Friday at nearly 8 feet over flood stage, the fourth-highest level on record for Trenton.

The weather was blamed for four deaths each in Maryland and Pennsylvania, one in Virginia and three in New York, including the two truckers.

The Agnes flood caused 50 deaths and more than $2 billion in damage in Pennsylvania, and remains the worst natural disaster in state history. It left 20,000 families homeless in Wilkes-Barre and surrounding Luzerne County towns.

Afterward, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers undertook one of the most ambitious flood-control projects east of the Mississippi River, raising the existing levees by 3 to 5 feet. The $200 million project was finally completed in 2003.

The Pennsylvania town of Wilkes-Barre was prepared for the worst overnight but levees held and the volume of water coming into the Susquehanna from tributaries upstream was less than had been anticipated, officials said.

"The danger has passed and life will return to normal," said James Brozena, county engineer for Luzerne County.

"It's hard to say we dodged a bullet, considering all the damage and danger, but so far the news has been good today," Rendell said. He said officials were watching the Delaware River in southeast Pennsylvania, which had yet to crest.

The focus also moved to Trenton, New Jersey, on Thursday, where the National Weather Service forecasted flooding on the Delaware would peak in the afternoon.

Binghamton, New York, remained partly flooded and the nearby town of Conklin was the worst hit in the area, according to Broome County spokeswoman Darcy Fauci. Hundreds of people were airlifted from Conklin and Fauci said it would take days for the water to recede.

"Today is going to be a big day for doing a lot of damage assessment and getting into more areas," Fauci said.

LEVEE SUCCESS

Anxiety in Wilkes-Barre, nicknamed "The Diamond City" in the 1800s for its coal riches, had centered on whether 28 miles of levees would withstand the pressure of the flooded river.

"The levee system has performed very well. It has certainly done its job," said Alan Pugh, chief of public safety for Pennsylvania's Luzerne County.

The National Weather Service had been predicting a second crest of 35 to 37 feet in the early hours of the morning but it did not materialize and the water level began falling.

A map posted by the weather service showed flood warnings spread over some 40,000 square miles of the United States, an area roughly the size of the state of Kentucky or the country of Iceland.

There was a flash-flood warning for Montgomery County in central Maryland, where engineers were assessing the state of the Lake Needwood Dam, the National Weather Service said.

The weather service also warned there could be severe thunder storms across New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland later in the day.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans' levees broke, flooding 80 percent of the city and killing over 1,800 people on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Brozena said the Wilkes-Barre levee system was more modern and less vulnerable than the New Orleans flood walls.

The levees -- restraining the Susquehanna River from overwhelming the town nicknamed "The Diamond City" in the 1800s for its coal riches -- were reinforced in 2004.

Despite the success of the levees, some parts of the county flooded and sustained many millions of dollars worth of damage, Pugh said.

Nine other car manufacturers with vehicles on the U.S. market accounted for an additional 84 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, bringing the total for all cars and light trucks in operation in 2004 to 314 million metric tons, the report found.

General Motors vehicles gave off 99 million metric tons or 31 percent of the total; Ford vehicles emitted 80 million metric tons or 25 percent and DaimlerChrysler vehicles emitted 51 million metric tons or 16 percent, according to the report.

By comparison, the largest U.S. electric utility, American Electric Power, had emissions of 41 million metric tons.

Greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, contribute to global warming, which in turn has been blamed for more severe hurricanes, rising seas and other environmental ills. Though greenhouse gas emissions have most frequently been associated with coal-fired power plants, the new report aims to point up comparable emissions from automobiles.

"The image of the power plant, with a smokestack and stuff billowing out of it, creates that sense of a lot of pollution in one place," John DeCicco, co-author of the report, said by telephone. "People don't necessarily understand that the millions of vehicles are part of the problem that is a really comparable scale."

He stressed a shared responsibility among consumers, auto manufacturers and policy makers.

"It's hard to pin just on General Motors the responsibility for that 20-year-old Chevy that's putting carbon up into the air," DeCicco said.

With just 5 percent of the world's population, the United States has 30 percent of the world's automobiles and produces 45 percent of the world's automotive carbon dioxide emissions, the report said. U.S. cars are driven more and burn more fuel per mile than the international average.

It is now experiencing "shivers": constant tremors inside the crater's bed. The agency's volcanologists have observed constant emissions of gas, ash and water vapor that is forming a cloud around 1 km above the volcano's crater.

Authorities said people could observe the volcano closely as it had been alternating periods of calm and moments of intense activity, which can last for months.

Flocks of villagers living near the volcano, located 135 km from the capital Quito, have voluntarily left their homes, saying the loud explosions made it hard for them to sleep at night.

The USGS said the epicentre was located 176 kilometres south-west of Misha on the Nicobar Islands and occurred at 11:37 p.m. Tuesday (1807 GMT).

Thousands were killed when the islands were hit by the December 2004 tsunami which was triggered by a massive 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra.

The National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction has already given first warnings for the possible evacuation of some 500 people.

To avoid damages for the possible spewing of ash and fire, authorities are monitoring four towns located in the volcano´s southern zone.

This is one of the country´s three volcanoes in constant activity, along with the Pacaya, south Guatemala, and Santiaguito, in the west.

"You just heard a loud crash, like boom, and then the house rattled," said resident Pam Watson.

Almost immediately, Watson headed to the door with her dogs. She thought her house might be on fire, but it wasn't her home that was struck. It was her neighbor's house on Sarazen Drive that took the hit.

As fast as the crash came, the rain left," Watson said.

No one was home at the time of the fire, but three dogs inside were unable to make it out.

The rain was just what firefighters could have used for the hot and fast-moving fire. It began at the back of the house, but quickly moved to the attic, and with so much damage to the house, there was plenty of fresh air to fuel the fire.

"They had just redone it within the last year," said neighbor John Mitchell.

Mitchell quickly came down the street to check on his neighbors, who weren't home when lightning struck. But, most of their house was left in ruin.

The Pine Hills fire was just one of about a half-dozen Orange County fire crews responded to in just 90 minutes time, all sparked by lightning.

"I honestly don't know how many calls we've got, but we got a lot of calls about the lightning," said Orange County Fire Battalion Chief Thomas Rullo.

"To see it going up like that, it was no putting it out. You know, they were spraying water on it. It was terrible," Mitchell said.

No one was home at the time of the fire, but three dogs inside were unable to make it out. Firefighter didn't have an exact estimate on damages, but said about 75-percent of the home was severely damaged.

"We don't know what's salvageable yet. So we're all pretty shell-shocked," said builder Hal George.

For those who have walked inside the multi-million dollar home Windsong, a luxury community in Winter Park, it's hard to believe it may have to be torn down.

"Like watching a piece of art go down in flames. It's a one-of-a-kind house," George said.

Tuesday night, the house was struck by lightning. It had been under construction for more than two years and was within 30 days of completion. There was no furniture inside, but the fire caused extensive structural damage.

"It's devastating just to see all that much work and heart and soul go into a project and have it come to this point," George said.

George is the builder and is friends with the owner. He said the house had marble floors, custom-made cabinetry and extensive, and very expensive, plaster work throughout all the walls and ceilings.

"They handmade the molds and did a phenomenal job of recreating that old European ornate look," George said.

Now it's looking like the French chateau-style home may have to be demolished and started from scratch. The owner of the home is Brett Moscovitz. He runs a surveying and mapping corporation in Winter Park.