VENICE, Italy -- High waters are forcing tourists and residents in Venice, Italy, to roll up their pants or put on rubber boots to get around the city.

Tourists and residents make their way through a flooded St. Mark's Square, Venice, Italy.

More than a foot of water is covering St. Mark's Square in the heart of Venice. Officials said about 80 percent of the city is underwater.

Officials have put out raised wooden walkways in some areas to help people get around. At least one person took the matter in his own hands and canoed through the city.

Venice's boat public transportation system suspended service for about one hour and some stores called to report water damage as a result of the flooding

HONOLULU — Heavy rain sent water as much as 8 feet deep rushing through the University of Hawaii's main research library Saturday, destroying irreplaceable documents and books, toppling doors and walls and forcing a few students to break a window to escape.

Flood water also washed through a biomedical lab, destroying at least a third of a professor's collection of flies used for genetic research.

Ten inches of rain fell in 24 hours starting Saturday morning in the Manoa Valley near Waikiki. Several cars were carried downstream when Manoa Stream overflowed its banks, and a school and church that were supposed to serve as polling places for Tuesday's election also were damaged.

Gov. Linda Lingle toured the university Sunday and declared Manoa Valley a state disaster area.

Manoa residents shoveled mud and debris out of their homes Sunday, while University of Hawaii officials canceled Monday classes and estimated damage in the millions after daybreak revealed the full extent of damage caused by the Halloween Eve flood.

The UH-Manoa campus was hit hard after the flash flood topped the banks of Manoa Stream and created a new river that raced through the heart of campus. Hamilton Library and the Biomedical Sciences building sustained the most serious damage, officials said. [...]

OTTAWA—Canadian climate researchers have found compelling evidence linking the rise in severe forest fires across the country to higher summer temperatures from greenhouse gas warming.

"When the temperature goes up, the area burned goes up," said University of Victoria climate researcher Nathan Gillette, the study's lead author.

Higher summer temperatures boost evaporation and lower moisture, leaving tinder-dry forests easy to set ablaze by lightning strikes or human carelessness.

Using a computer climate model and statistical tests, Gillette found that rising summer temperatures could explain almost two-thirds of the increase in the total area burned by forest fires since 1920. The research also demonstrated that the temperature rises matched the projected warming effect from higher atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases over Canada from human activity, largely burning fossil fuels.

Last year British Columbia was hit with the worst outbreak this century with 2,500 wildfires causing damage estimated at $700 million, the evacuation of more 45,000 people, destruction of 300-plus homes and three deaths.

The results confirm previous theoretical predictions by federal forest officials that human-induced climate warming would trigger more frequent and more damaging forest fires.

"We're pretty sure those sorts of forest fires across Canada are a consequence of climate change that's associated with greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide," said climate expert Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria professor who supervised Gillette's research. [...]

WASHINGTON – With only eight weeks left before the elves finish their work and Santa Claus mounts his sleigh, an eight-nation study on global warming co-sponsored by the United States has concluded that the North Pole is melting beneath St. Nick.

The 144-page report, which is due to be officially released a week after Tuesday’s elections, says the accelerated warming of the globe – which it blames mostly on the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced by the industrial age – is transforming the Arctic region dramatically.

The Arctic "is now experience some of the most rapid and severe climate change on Earth," according to the report, which was obtained by the New York Times and the Washington Post this weekend, apparently from European sources that wanted to publicize its findings before Tuesday.

The European Union (EU), some of whose member states co-sponsored the study, strongly supports the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse emissions, while President George W. Bush has rejected the accord. His Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, has called for the U.S. to rejoin negotiations on the treaty’s terms.

"Over the next 100 years, climate change is expected to accelerate, contributing to major physical, ecological, social and economic changes, many of which have already begun," the report stated, adding that greenhouse gas emissions have clearly become "the dominant factor" in the Arctic’s changing climate. [...]

Killer heatwaves will take a greater toll as the population grows older and the climate warms, according to a major study on global disasters.

The developed world can expect to suffer the devastating effects of even hotter summers than the one last year in Europe, which is estimated to have killed up to 35,000 people.

A report by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warns that more extreme heatwaves can be added to the long list of natural and man-made disasters that will affect the world in the coming decades. Extreme summer temperatures in the developed world will be one of the extra problems affecting humanity in the 21st century, said Markku Niskala, secretary general of the federation. "The face of disasters is changing. Soaring urban populations, environmental degradation, poverty and disease are compounding seasonal hazards such as droughts and floods," he said. "The developed world faces new threats too. Five degrees more summer heat than usual triggered a disaster that shamed modern, wealthy societies across Europe in 2003. Up to 35,000 elderly and vulnerable people suffered silent, lonely deaths, abandoned by state welfare systems in retreat." [...]

The systematic destruction of the Amazon is being carried out by slave labour.

The knock on the door Valdemir Maria de Jesus had been hoping for came at 3am. The early hour was strange but after three and a half months of clearing rainforest, the salary owed to him and his friend Antonio was finally to be paid. It was a moment for celebration.

Like thousands of Brazilian labourers working in the Amazon, the meagre £800 the two men had earned from their back-breaking efforts in the frontier state of Para would provide them with the means to start new lives, enough to build a new house, marry or support their families.

But when Valdemir went to the door, it was not a wad of banknotes but a gun that his boss, Maciel, was brandishing. "I opened the door and he shot me," said Valdemir, a slight man in his twenties who still has the bullets lodged in him. "When the first hit me, I fell down and pretended to be dead. He shot me a second time. Then he went over and shot my friend. After he finished with him, he came back and kicked me several times in the head to check if I was dead. After he left, people found me and they somehow got me to hospital."

The first bullet hit Valdemir in the lung, the second in his back. But, despite being critically wounded, his instinct to feign death saved him. He is now in hiding at his father's home, hundreds of miles of away in another province, awaiting surgery to remove the bullets.

Antonio was not so fortunate. The wife and children he left behind to seek his fortune in Para probably do not even know he is dead. His identity card was stolen by his murderer and nobody else knows his surname.

Perhaps the most shocking element is that, far from being an isolated incidence of greed and inhumanity, it is part of the dark secret that lurks in Brazil's rural heartlands. Valdemir, whose real name has been withheld to protect him from reprisals, and Antonio were among 25,000 men working as slave labourers, forced to destroy thousands of acres of virgin rainforest or work in Dickensian conditions to work off debts that can never be paid. [...]

TUCSON, Ariz.(AP) - Did global warming spur severe drought in the Western United States? A new study co-authored by a tree-ring researcher at the University of Arizona shows a possible connection.

The width of tree rings over the past 1,200 years show that temperatures were unusually high during "megadroughts" between 900 A.D. and 1300 A.D., according to the study.

It said the era may be an indication of what's to come for the West as the planet keeps getting hotter.

"It's kind of a cautionary tale," said lead author Edward Cook of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "Any warming in the future, whether due to greenhouse gases or natural variation, would not be good for the West."

Global warming is at least partly due to heat-trapping greenhouse gases from tailpipes and smokestacks.

So will the Earth will keep getting warmer this century?

The study's authors note there's no proof global warming has caused the West's current dry spell.

"I think it's way too speculative to say that warming is in any way responsible for these last four years of drought," said David Meko, associate research professor at UA's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. "A four-year drought is a little blip in the tree-ring record."

But the scientists believe the synchronicity between the warm and dry periods wasn't just a coincidence.

They say the warmer temperatures are at least partly due to heat-trapping greenhouse gases from tailpipes and smokestacks. And they suspect higher temperatures made the eastern Pacific resemble the La Nia pattern that typically makes the West drier than normal.

The study is scheduled to be published in the journal Science in the next few weeks. It was reported earlier this month in the prestigious publication's online edition.

JOHOR BAHARU : A Singaporean driver is feared dead after he was swept away by strong currents into a river during a flood.

Bernama news agency said Yong Poh Hong, in his 40s, and his friend Ivan Ho, were traversing the flooded Jalan Tampoi Lama when the car stalled at 4.32pm.

An Indonesian worker at a nearby petrol station, Mohd Khalid Abu, 24, told reporters the car stalled due to the flood waters.

He said both of them managed to get out of the car but the driver was swept away by the rushing flood waters into the swelling Sungai Kempas.

He said he then rushed to a nearby bridge with another Indonesian worker Zakaria Satung, 25, hoping to save the victim who was popping up and down in the water.

"At one point, Zakaria managed to grasp the victim's hand but the strong currents pulled him away. There was nothing we could do," said Mohd Khalid.

Johor Baharu Fire and Rescue Deputy Chief Rashid Hassan Murad said a search and rescue operations had been mounted to locate the missing driver.

LUBBOCK, Texas — Wet snow blanketed parts of Texas, closing roads and cutting power to thousands.

The heaviest accumulation Tuesday was more than a foot in the Lubbock area, where the storm closed four roads and left 10,000 to 15,000 homes without electricity.

The Texas Panhandle saw as many as 8 inches, according to the National Weather Service.

“The snow is extremely wet and heavy, and it came with bad wind,” National Weather Service meteorologist Shawn Ellis said.

Many of the outages came when wind gusts up to 45 mph caused tree limbs to break and knock out power lines, Ellis said. [...]

(Australia) - THE DRIEST October since 1991 will leave many of the district's farmers with yields barley high enough to cover their input costs.

Most towns have registered at least 20 millimetres of rainfall less than their averages, a figure that will no doubt raise the blood pressure of farmers heading in to harvest.

In 1991 Murray Bridge received 1.8mm, Kar-oonda 2mm and Meningie 0.8mm.

This season's dry spell may mean yields for many farmers will reach only 25 per cent of those in 2003.

Not only has the region missed out on vital rain, but it has also experienced extremely hot weather, including the hottest October day ever recorded (records date back to 1966), on October 12, when it reached 39.7 degrees.

A new scientific study says the Arctic ice cover will disappear in summer by the end of this century unless carbon dioxide emissions are significantly reduced.

The study, to be released next week, says the Arctic ice melt will cause sea levels to rise and could lead to the extinction of some species such as polar bears.

"The melt has begun," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the Climate Change Campaign for the environmental organisation WWF, which published excerpts of the upcoming Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) report.

Commissioned by the Arctic Council and compiled by more than 250 scientists, the report concludes that climate change is happening in the Arctic and that it will get worse unless emissions of carbon dioxide are cut.

Grim predictions

The report presents several potential scenarios which would occur if the Arctic ice were to disappear in summertime by the end of the 21st century.

It said sea levels could rise by one metre, noting that there are currently 17 million people living less than one metre above sea level in Bangladesh. It said places such as Florida and Louisiana in the United States and the Asian cities of Bangkok, Calcutta, Dhaka and Manila were also at risk.

However, on the positive side, rising sea levels could create a northern passage for shipping between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and would open up new areas for fishing, mining and oil and gas exploration.

The melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which is expected to take hundreds of years, could ultimately lead to a seven-metre rise in sea levels, the report said. [...]

[AUSTRALIA] - A SHORTCUT on a shopping trip went tragically wrong yesterday when floodwaters claimed the lives of two young sisters west of Maryborough in central Queensland.

The girls, aged 8 and 11, drowned when the Toyota LandCruiser in which they were travelling was swept off a causeway in Degilbo Creek near Biggenden at 8.30am.

The girls were unable to escape the vehicle – driven by a male family friend – after it sank near a road crossing in the swollen creek, which had been nearly dry 24 hours before.

For 60 years the skeletal remains of more than 200 people, discovered in 1942 close to the glacial Roopkund Lake in the remote Himalayan Gahrwal region, have puzzled historians, scientists and archaeologists. Were they soldiers killed in battle, royal pilgrims who lost their way and succumbed to hypothermia, or Tibetan traders who died of a mysterious illness?

Flights & Hotels

Now, the first forensic investigation of one of the area's most enduring mysteries has concluded that hundreds of nomads - whose frozen corpses are being disgorged from ice high in the mountain - were killed by one of the most lethal hailstorms in history.

Scientists commissioned by the National Geographic television channel to examine the corpses have discovered that they date from the 9th century - and believe that they died from sharp blows to their skulls, almost certainly by giant hailstones. "We were amazed by what we found," said Dr Pramod Joglekar, a bio-archaeologist at Deccan College, Pune, who was among the team who visited the site 16,500ft above sea level.

"In addition to skeletons, we discovered bodies with the flesh intact, perfectly preserved in the icy ground. We could see their hair and nails as well as pieces of clothing."

The most startling discovery was that many of those who died suffered fractured skulls. "We retrieved a number of skulls which showed short, deep cracks," said Dr Subhash Walimbe, a physical anthropologist at the college. "These were caused not by a landslide or an avalanche but by blunt, round objects about the size of cricket balls." [...]

HOBART, Australia - Australia will host a conference here this week to try to win international support for a campaign to save endangered seabirds from being wiped out by fishing and pollution, the government said Sunday.

Australia has already won the support of New Zealand, Ecuador, Spain, Britain and South Africa in ratifying an agreement to protect albatrosses and petrels, which came into effect in February.

But it believes the plight of the two seabirds is now so dire that much more needs to be done if they are to be rescued from extinction.

"Australia is hosting this meeting because we believe that more can be done to protect these birds, whose journeys have inspired mariners for years and continue to link Southern Hemisphere countries," said Environment Minister Ian Campbell. [...]

AMSTERDAM - Almost half of the species of birds in Europe are at risk of disappearing, according to a new report.

The latest assessment by BirdLife International, an umbrella organization of conservation groups, says 226 species of birds on the continent, or about 43 per cent, are in danger of being wiped out.

The northern lapwing has suffered declines across much of Europe since 1990. (Andy Hay/RSPB Images) "Birds are excellent environmental indicators and the continued decline of many species sends a clear signal about the health of Europe's wildlife and the poor state of our environment," said Clairie Papazoglou, head of BirdLife. [...]

Perth, Australia — An oil slick up to 12 kilometres long is polluting a World Heritage-listed stretch of the Western Australian coast that includes an important nesting site for threatened loggerhead turtles, a state government said Tuesday.

The slick in the Shark Bay area of Western Australia state's northern coast includes a turtle habitat on Dirk Hartog Island. It was reported to the state government Monday, state Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan said.

Authorities have not yet determined the source, she said. [...]

DENVER (AP) -- A government climate researcher is predicting that the five-year Western drought could linger for several more years and more frequent droughts are likely.

"It could continue for several more years, and it's something we need to be aware of," Gregory McCabe of the U.S. Geological Survey said. "I think people should be on their guard."

Drought in the West often is linked to periods when the northern Atlantic Ocean is warmer than normal, periods that tend to last nine to 23 years, McCabe said.

The northern Atlantic switched into a warm phase nine years ago, and it shows no signs of fading, McCabe said Monday at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. [...]

The flooding that began on Saturday in Kebumen, Central Java, has spread through the regency to affect several towns and villages, sweeping away at least four houses and forcing hundreds of victims to flee on Tuesday.

On Saturday, dozens of villages in the four districts of Karanganyar, Adimulyo, Kuwarasan and Poncowarno became inundated, and one person was killed in the disaster. [...]

Floodwaters rushed through Tegalsari, damaging or destroying dozens of houses after a 100-meter local dike on the Kemit River gave way.

At least four houses in Tegalsari were swept away and 15 others heavily damaged, while 200 homes were submerged in water. No new reports on casualties have been issued. [...]

MIAMI - A storm system brewing in the central Caribbean could develop into a tropical cyclone this week while dropping heavy rain and causing dangerous flooding and mud slides on Puerto Rico and the island of Hispaniola, forecasters said.

Clouds and thunderstorms stretched over a vast area from Costa Rica to Puerto Rico, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported.

Though the storm had no defined center, it became better organized Tuesday and could develop into a tropical or subtropical storm by Thursday, forecasters said.

"The primary threat right now is heavy rain that will continue whether the system develops or not," said Jack Beven, a hurricane specialist at the center.

Satellite estimates showed more than 10 inches of rain falling each hour.

The next tropical storm to form during the Atlantic hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30, would be named Otto.

BEIJING - Large swathes of southern and eastern China are in the grip of their worst drought in more than 50 years, prompting calls from the countries top leaders for better management of water conservation.

A prolonged dry spell has ravaged southern and eastern provinces, including Guangdong, Hainan, Jiangxi and Anhui provinces and Guangxi autonomous region, the Xinhua news agency reported Thursday.

In Jiangxi alone, drinking water to 620,000 people and 260,000 livestock is threatened.

The State Council, China's cabinet, held an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss the crisis and hammer out ways to deal with drought relief and water conservancy construction in the coming winter and spring.

To combat the drought, the government called on residents to save water as much as possible while local governments were instructed to improve management of water utilities to guarantee daily water supplies in urban and rural areas.

The government would also increase relief funds, Vice Premier Hui Liangyu was cited as saying.

To make matters worse, China's meteorological department is predicting a warm winter, which could worsen the drought, increase the risk of forest and grassland fires and trigger the spread of animal diseases, Xinhua said.

While large parts of the country are suffering drought, many others areas have been hit by heavy rains and floods this year, with hundreds of people dying and thousands injured.

Day turned to night across Shenyang when a freak cloud formation 8,000 metres deep blanketed the northeastern city.

For over half-an-hour noon was as black as midnight. Cars, buses and lorries went someway to breaking up the darkness.

Tremendous lightening flashes accompanied the phenomena, reports the website www.sina.com.cn.

Convergence of two cloud fronts formed the 8,000-metre-thick connective cloud cluster.

With sky and sun effectively blocked out, visibility was reduced to near zero, according to an expert from the provincial capital's meteorological bureau.

The marvellous spectacle was also reported in many other areas of Liaoning Province and lasted for half an hour in some places, he said.

The meteorologist warned that temperatures are likely to plummet in the coming days.

The series of quakes Oct. 23 largely ruined the area's vast network of snow-removal devices--including pipes installed under roads to melt snow, which piles up to several meters in places in the heart of winter. These pipes, as well as wide snow gutters, were put in place long ago to combat some of the heaviest snowfall in Japan.

HALIFAX - More than 100,000 Nova Scotians faced a night without power Sunday, after the season's first snowstorm knocked out electricity across the province and shut down Halifax airport.

Power may not be restored to some areas until the end of the week, the province's electricity company warned late Sunday.

The damage to the grid is extensive and getting worse as the storm continues, said Nova Scotia Power spokeswoman Margaret Murphy.

he called it a "worst-case scenario."

Heavy, wet snow downed power lines across the province and crumpled four steel transmission towers in Dartmouth, a city of more than 65,000 people.

It badly damaged nine towers by late Sunday.

"When you have four transmission towers crumple, just collapse, under the weight of the wet snow, that shows it's certainly one of the worst winter storms that we've seen," Murphy said. [...]

ZAGREB - Gale-force winds paralysed air, road and sea traffic along Croatia's Adriatic coast, causing delays, cancellations and power failures, while dozens of people were injured and three were reported missing in the sea, media reports said.

Two Austrians, a man and a woman, fell into the sea early on Sunday from a yacht some 30 nautic miles southwest of the northern Adriatic town of Pula, close to the maritime border line between Italy and Croatia, the national center for search and rescue said.

Due to strong Bora winds rescuers on the Italian and Croatian side were not immediately able to search for them.

A fisherman from the northern island of Krk was also reported missing.

In the northern Adriatic town of Rijeka winds, gusting up to 200 kilometers (125 miles) per hour, toppled trees and ripped off roof-tiles.

Dozens of people were injured and hospitalized in coastal towns and on the islands, notably some 30 in Rijeka, with 20 of them sustaining serious injuries, national radio reported.

Railway and road traffic in the Rijeka region was also disrupted, while parts of the highway linking the capital Zagreb with the southern town of Split were closed.

Due to strong winds airports at Dubrovnik and Split on the southern Adriatic canceled flights, airport authorities said.

Ferry connections to most Adriatic islands were also cancelled and some of the islands had power cuts.

A ferry linking Split with the Italian port of Ancona, which had 140 passangers and some 30 vehicles on board, had trouble to dock in the Split port due to engine problems. Eventually, with the help of divers sent from Split the Split 1700 ferry docked safely after a delay of a few hours.

ROME (AP) - Two Italians were killed in a landslide this weekend as fierce storms pounded the country, causing floods that slowed trains, cut off traffic and forced hundreds of people to evacuate their homes.

Rescue teams near the northern city of Lecco on Sunday found the bodies of two Italians in their 70s who were killed when a landslide swept over their house, the ANSA news agency said.

About 100 people were evacuated from their homes in the area, as were 200 people in the southern Italian town of Termoli, the agency said. Trains were stalled on the line between Rome and Naples and on a few smaller routes.

In Florence, several parks were closed, including the famous Boboli Gardens. Heavy winds shattered a 14th-century stained-glass window in Santa Croce church, ANSA said. No one was injured.

TWO people are dead and five family members are critical as a result of a massive landslide which came crashing down in Delaford, Tobago following six hours of heavy rain which battered the island non-stop yesterday. [...]

(Australia) - Climate change will stretch fire and rescue services within decades as parts of NSW face 35 degree-plus temperatures for 100 days every year.

A CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology report, to be presented to an international taskforce today, warns of dire consequences in the next 25 to 65 years, with more hot spells and fewer cold snaps.

"Increases in hot days and hot spells can increase bushfire risk, human mortality and energy demand for air-conditioning," says the report, obtained by the Herald. "Heat stress to animals and crops is likely to increase. Transport infrastructure is also likely to be affected, with greater frequency of buckling of railway lines and melting of road tar."

The Premier, Bob Carr, warned yesterday that the financial cost of climate change would only increase as the State Emergency Service and the Rural Bushfire Service faced more severe conditions for longer periods.

"Recent flash floods and storms damaged houses, roads and farmlands," he said. "This study is a warning that there may be more dramatic climatic extremes ahead unless we act." [...]

Anyone who lives in the eastern part of the United States or Canada and gazing skyward on Tuesday evening may have noticed something strange in their west-northwest sky.

At around 9 p.m. EDT, a small, bright, silvery circular cloud of light suddenly appeared. Over the next 25 minutes, the cloud appeared to gradually expand and fade, finally becoming invisible to the unaided eye. Those who saw it, wondered exactly what it might have been.

John Bortle, a well-known amateur astronomer with over four-decades of experience of sky observing first caught sight of the cloud at 9:03 p.m. EDT from his home in Stormville, New York. Initially, he thought the cloud was as bright as zero or first magnitude and upon examining it carefully with binoculars, thought that it " ... resembled the petals of a day lily." By 9:30 p.m., he reported that the cloud had faded completely from his view.

From the North Fork of Long Island, Bill Bogardus and his wife were out observing when they took note of the cloud " ... about the size of the moon" in the northwest sky. "It was a roundish, yet not all that round, object drifting towards our location very slowly, slower that most satellites because it took at least twenty minutes to move from where we first saw it to pretty much our zenith."

After studying it for a while through an 8-inch telescope, Bogardus noticed two points of light, " ... like a satellite would appear, in line and above a jet of gas that seemed to come from them."

Observing from Ithaca, New York, Joseph Storch used 7x50 binoculars on the cloud and reported a star-like point or nucleus and four butterfly shaped petals radiating outward.

Other reports, received as far west as Toronto tell of people who initially thought that what they were seeing was the moon behind a cloud. Typical was the comment: "For a second I thought it was the moon, then I realized the moon was in the east."

What was it?

Not a few people who saw this strange, expanding cloud thought that it might have been an atmospheric experiment sent aloft by a sounding rocket. Over the years, those living along the US East Coast have been accustomed to occasionally seeing unusual brightly colored clouds caused when exotic chemicals such as barium and trimethylaluminum were released into the Earth's ionosphere by rockets launched from NASA's Wallops Island, Virginia site.

However, in this case it was the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office -- not NASA -- that was responsible for the unusual cloud formation on Tuesday night.

It was a fuel dump of the Centaur stage involved in the NRO-1 satellite launch from Cape Canaveral late Tuesday afternoon. Dumping excess fuel is the usual practice for all Centaur-booster assisted launches. It happens after spacecraft separation; the fuel bleeding off from a Centaur upper rocket stage on its second orbit after launch. Being just after nightfall, the cloud of fuel was still sunlit at that altitude.

And those who were fortuitously outside when the dump occurred, were the ones who saw this very unusual sight!

A reader writes:

On your Nov. 9th page, you included a short blurb about a large CME
headed towards earth that could cause aurora activity, but I haven't
seen any follow-up regarding this. (This is understandable given the
absurd amount political upheaval occurring over the last week.)

Today, I came across a page containing photos of the resulting aurora
activity in Nebraska. I formerly lived in Nebraska for many years,
and never saw any aurora activity. That must have been a very
powerful CME for there to be as much activity as these photos show so far south.

Campaigners demand urgent assessment of the risks to Everest
Environmentalists are calling for Mount Everest should be put on a UN danger list because of global warming.

Melting glaciers have swollen lakes and increased the risk of catastrophic flooding in the Himalayas, they say.

The move to save the world's highest peak is part of a new campaign to force reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. [...]

The World Conservation Congress opens with the release of the annual red list of threatened species which is expected to paint a gloomy picture of the state of the planet's wildlife.

One in four mammals and one in eight birds are known to be at risk and hundreds more species are expected to be added to the list for this year's edition. Last year's report said 12,259 species were threatened.

More than 5,000 scientists, activists and government representatives are expected to attend the nine-day conference designed to highlight the growing threat to wildlife amid rampaging development in parts of the world. [...]

CAIRO - Swarms of pink locusts swept through Cairo on Wednesday in scenes that recalled the biblical plague of Egypt.

The swarms flew high above tall towers or swooped down onto treelined streets, where scared pedestrians stamped on them or ran for cover.

The flying insects arrived from neighbouring Libya after devouring the countryside in central and western Africa in past months. But locust experts said they were unlikely to wreak similar havoc in Egypt, where agriculture is a cornerstone of the economy.

"This is really horrible," said one man as he ran past a building where locusts, some of them more than 3 inches long, smacked into office windows or landed on cars. [...]

SAN ANTONIO (AP) - Torrential thunderstorms caused flash floods that drowned one woman who was swept from a bridge, and more flooding was expected as rain continued falling Wednesday. A second person was missing.

Firefighters discovered the woman's body late Tuesday. Witnesses told police they saw the woman trying to walk across the bridge over a creek even though a Public Works Department employee warned her not to.

Another woman had been missing since Sunday night in the Blanco River near San Marcos, northeast of San Antonio.

The car driven by Laurie Pineda, 24, was swept away as she tried to drive through a low-water crossing on the Blanco River. A passenger was rescued. The stream had risen more than three metres in two hours. [...]

Pasadena CA - Recent sea-level height data from the U.S./France Jason altimetric satellite during a 10-day cycle ending November 15, 2004, show that the central equatorial Pacific continues to exhibit an area of higher-than-normal sea surface heights (indicating warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures) between 180 degrees West and 130 degrees West.

This feature, should it continue and spread eastward through November and December, could elevate the present weak El Nino episode to a moderate or stronger event.

Previous warmings over the past several months, however, have dissipated. Scientists will continue to monitor the Pacific closely for further signs of El Nino intensity and development. [...]

WARSAW - At least seven people including a six-month-old child were killed in Poland Thursday when gale-force winds ripped across the country, emergency services said.

The baby was killed in the capital Warsaw when a tree branch fell onto its stroller in a park, it said.

At least three other people, including a fire officer involved in a rescue operation, were killed by falling trees, while another died when gales blew him off his bicycle.

Two people were killed when a tree hit their car at Starogard Gdanski, while a tree also killed a car driver at Gizycko.

A farmer was killed under his own tractor when it capsized on a steep slope.

Road traffic was widely disrupted and tens of thousands were without electricity.

COPENHAGEN - A massive storm hit Scandinavia early Thursday, cutting power to thousands of households and disrupting land, sea and air traffic across the region.

The storm barreled in over the Danish shores of the North Sea, with wind gales of up to 30 meters (yards) per second and water levels rising by three to four meters (10 to 13 feet) in a number of western ports, the Danish Meteorological Institute and rescue services said.

The Great Baelt bridge, which links the eastern and western parts of the country, was closed to traffic for about three hours Thursday morning due to strong wind, according to the country's highway authority.

The gusts of wind uprooted dozens of trees and blew roofs off of houses, and the town of Odense on the island of Fyn in central Denmark was left without power for about 30 minutes after a transformer there exploded. [...]

MANILA : Three people have been killed and 1,000 others displaced as Typhoon Muifa struck the eastern Philippines.

One man drowned and an elderly man succumbed to hypothermia in the island of Catanduanes, the first region to experience Muifa's 120 kilometer (74.4 mile) per hour winds, the civil defense office said.

Another man drowned off Bulan town in the Bicol peninsula near Catanduanes, where 40 houses were destroyed or damaged.

A man was injured and more than 1,000 others were displaced in Catanduanes and Bicol.

The civil defense office said power has been restored to these areas, but that some roads and bridges remained closed due to landslides or floods.

Muifa hovered over the Philippine Sea just off the northeastern town of Casiguran early Friday, the weather bureau said.

BERLIN - A storm accompanied by violent gusts of wind, heavy snowfalls and chilling temperatures knifed into the center of Europe after earlier causing major disruption in Scandinavia and Poland.

Winds gusting at up to 180 kilometers (112 miles) an hour were recorded at Wendelstein in Bavaria. Fallen trees disrupted traffic in several regions, including Stuttgart in the southeast.

Heavy snow fell on Lower Saxony, obstructing traffic and cutting of domestic electricity supplies. The snow was responsible for a multi-vehicle pile up on the A3 highway near Westerwald, causing damage estimated at 150,000 euros (196,000 dollars).

Police said a 49-year-old man was killed when his car hit a pitch of black ice and skidded off the road in Saxony-Anhalt. Another man died of exposure in the Sauerland.

A woman was killed in Slovakia in the Tatra mountains near the border with Poland when the car she was driving was struck by a falling tree, and a woman passenger was injured, police said.

Austrian authories said the driver of a small van was killed near Vienna when a gust of wind blew his vehicle into the path of an automobile coming from the opposite direction. The driver of the other vehicle was reported grievously injured.

A worker was seriously injured when he was blown off scaffolding at Styria in southern Austria, and a pedestrian was hit by a flying tile in Salzburg.

The APA news agency said the high winds overturned five heavy trucks, caused numerous electricity cuts and resulted in blocked lines of traffic dozens of kilometers long.

In the Czech Republic, a 27-year-old man was crushed and killed when the gable of his house collapsed near Brno.

Road and rail services were seriously affected and hundreds of trees were uprooted.

The Czech-German border at Cinovec/Altenburg was closed for several hours Friday due to heavy snowfalls, police said.

In Croatia one person was killed when high winds overturned his camper. High winds caused widespread electricity outages.

Earlier, at least seven people including a six-month-old child were killed in gales in Poland Thursday that widely disrupted road traffic and left tens of thousands of homes without electricity.

The massive storm also swept across Scandinavia on Thursday disrupting land, sea and air traffic.

Swarms of large locusts landed on Saturday evening near the village of Faran in the Arava region and the village of Neot Hakikar south of the Dead Sea.

Agriculture Ministry workers have been scanning the area in order to find the exact location of the swarms.

A fresh wave of relatively large locusts were spotted flying over the southern town of Eilat earlier on Saturday. This was the second wave of locusts to have hit the town in as many days.

The swarms came in from the north west and were seen at the outskirts of a neighborhood. Agriculture Ministry officials believe more waves could hit southern Israel before Saturday evening.

The ministry stated however that it wasn't clear whether the new swarms of locusts would swoop down on Israel or carry on into Jordan.

The ministry said earlier on Saturday it was preparing to spray insecticides in the event that more locusts are spotted in the region. The ministry began spraying pesticides against locusts on Saturday morning after swarms hit agricultural areas in the southern Negev desert on Friday.

The locusts are not expected to advance further north, because swarms in Egypt and Cyprus - countries the insects have already invaded on their way north to Israel - have already been destroyed.

Five cropdusting planes began spraying Saturday morning against locusts that have descended on agricultural areas in the Negev desert. The planes sprayed the pesticides in riverbeds near Kadesh Barnea on Israel's border with Egypt.

The Plant Protection and Inspection Services say thousands of locusts have also hit Eilat and municipality workers were spraying the parks in the city on Saturday morning. After the workers sprayed in the city, there were no further reports of locusts spotted in Eilat.

"We are checking all the time and the planes are spraying in areas where there is a large concentration of locusts," said an Agriculture Ministry official.

The substance used to destroy the locusts was authorized by the ministry and the Plant Protection and Inspection Services have promised they would use a diluted version of the insecticide, which won't cause other kinds of animals to be poisoned, should they consume the dead locusts.

Locusts were first spotted Friday afternoon in the southern neighborhoods of Eilat and in the hotel district of the city. Many residents of Eilat called the municipality's hotline to report the arrival of the insects.

The younger locusts cause a relatively limited amount of damage, usually attacking gardens or vegetable patches. But one swarm, which was spotted near kibbutz Eilot, concerned the members of the kibbutz, since crops including vegetables and melons could be compromised, some of which have already ripened and are ready for harvest.

Israeli officials and their counterparts in the region have been monitoring the locusts' movement for weeks. Earlier this month, a few individual locusts were spotted along the coastal plain and in communities including Palmahim, Tel Aviv and Karmiel.

The Agriculture Ministry received a request from its Palestinian counterpart to coordinate steps aimed at eliminating the locusts if they do arrive in the area.

JERUSALEM - Millions of locusts swarmed through Israel's Red Sea resort town of Eilat on Sunday, devouring crops and flowers in the country's south.

Israeli agriculture officials sent crop dusters into the air to spray against the locusts that swept in from North Africa in the first such invasion since 1959. Eilat residents reported clouds of locusts eating palm trees bare and wiping out entire gardens.

"You watch as trees that are covered with flowers are devoured. They ate everything, even a grassy roundabout which is covered with locusts," said Meir, an Eilat resident.

Curious residents swatted locusts as long as 10 cm (3.9 inches) which filled the air as they walked outside to inspect the damage. "It's like the plagues of Egypt," said one resident.

In the Bible, locusts were the eighth of 10 plagues that God inflicted on the ancient Egyptians before Pharaoh, their leader, let the Israelites go. [...]

EL CAMPO, Texas -- Hundreds of people were forced to flee their homes in boats and large trucks after 15 inches of rain fell on this south Texas town Sunday.

The rain, which fell at a rate of up to 2 1/2 inches an hour in Wharton County before tapering off Sunday afternoon, also prompted officials to close a stretch of U.S. 59 after a creek overflowed its banks. No injuries had been reported by Sunday afternoon.

"I haven't seen this much rain in a long time," El Campo Mayor Randy Collins said. "There are still some areas of town you are not able to access by car. The south part of town is the worst hit."

Between 50 and 100 homes were flooded in El Campo, causing about 250 people to be evacuated, Collins said. Two shelters were filled by Sunday afternoon.

Parts of the surrounding counties of Colorado and Jackson got 10 to 12 inches of rain. A flood watch remained in effect through early Monday morning for a 23-county area around Houston. [...]

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Relentless gale-force winds are making life miserable for Austrians, and as if two weeks of accidents, property damage and bad hair days haven't been enough, forecasters say more is on the way.

"I hate wind!" Herbert Hufnagl wrote Monday in a commentary for the Kurier newspaper, capturing the frustration and wind fatigue sweeping the alpine nation along with the howling gales.

The blustery weather is no laughing matter in Austria, where it's been blamed for road fatalities, or in neighboring Slovakia, where record-high winds devastated huge swaths of forest over the weekend.

Powerful winds have made driving a treacherous, white-knuckle experience as motorists struggle just to keep their vehicles on the road. Authorities say gusts exceeding 60 mph have blown cars across the median and into head-on collisions, some resulting in deaths and serious injuries.

Boats plying the Danube have had to deal with stomach-churning whitecaps and swells, and a federation representing Austria's trucking industry said Monday the recent closures of key highways for several hours at a time has cost shippers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Those who have stayed home have had to cope with blown-off roof tiles and fallen trees that have damaged buildings and snapped overhead power lines, cutting electricity to thousands of households. [...]

In Slovakia, gusts clocked at 108 mph -- the strongest since records began being kept in 1936 -- wiped out an estimated half of all the timber in the country's High Tatras mountains. Officials put the loss at tens of millions of dollars.

The government asked the European Union for emergency financial assistance, and residents described the windstorm as an "apocalypse." [...]

Hopes were fading for dozens of fishermen who were lost at sea south of the main island of Luzon when tropical storm Muifa unexpectedly changed course and struck the region on Friday.

Coastguard spokesman Armando Balilo told AFP the missing men had spent more than 48 hours in raging waters and that aerial searches of the region were underway. "We are using choppers (helicopters) to look for them," he said. [...]

Big waves and strong winds sank or capsized the vessels on Saturday, killing two other crew members. Thirty-four other crew members were rescued by other vessels.

The government agency reported three other deaths by drowning, two by hypothermia, one struck by a falling tree, five by a tornado near Roxas town on Mindoro, and 11 others due to unspecified causes.

Three other people are also missing, while 79 were injured.
Muifa destroyed or damaged more than 27,000 houses and displaced more than 60,000 people, it added. [...]

AUSTIN, Texas - Tornadoes touched down Tuesday in eastern Texas, killing a woman, injuring three people, and destroying several homes after days of rain throughout the region.

Valerie Stewart, a dispatcher for the Hardin County Sheriff's Department, said there was "pretty extensive damage," but she was not aware of other injuries from a deadly late-afternoon tornado — one of four she said struck the county.

"Several trailers were wiped out," Stewart said. She did not know whether the woman who died lived in a trailer. [...]

(Philippines) - Shortly after Typhoon Unding moved out toward Vietnam leaving 49 people dead, 77 injured and 67 others missing, Tropical Storm Violeta entered the country and triggered flash floods in Aurora province that killed 17 people.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) said on Tuesday that the Southern Tagalog region has the biggest number of casualties with 31 dead, 75 injured and 66 missing, followed by Bicol region with 18 dead, two injured and one missing.

Damage to infrastructure, agriculture and fisheries was estimated at P384 million.

Reports reaching the NDCC said that four towns in Aurora were submerged in deep waters following the flash floods.

At least 10 people died in the town of Dingalan and four people perished in a landslide in Baler while in San Luis town, three others died of drowning. [...]

A fierce snowstorm pummeled the Midwest on one of the busiest travel days of the year Wednesday, snarling roads and causing long delays at airports as millions of Thanksgiving travelers tried to make it home for the holiday weekend.

The National Weather Service said parts of Illinois got up to 8 inches of snow, while 7 inches were reported outside Kansas City in the Midwest's first major snowfall of the season. The region was also hit by strong thunderstorms, high winds and icy conditions that made driving treacherous.

The snow caused dozens of flight cancellations and three-hour delays at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, where city officials expected more than 1.4 million travelers to pass through by Sunday night. [...]

(AP) - Tornadoes whirled across the South from Texas to Alabama, killing four people, wrecking homes and businesses in rural areas and the New Orleans suburbs, and turning trees to kindling.

The violent weather was part of a system that had drenched Texas for four days, pushing rivers out of their banks and forcing people out of their homes. A line of tornadoes skipped through Alabama early Wednesday, damaging homes and knocking down trees and power lines.

A falling tree killed a woman in a home in Bynum, Ala., about 80 kilometres east of Birmingham, and a deputy spotted a tornado about the same time, said Calhoun County emergency management spokeswoman Laura Roberts.

A tornado overturned mobile homes and damaged other houses at rural Autaugaville, Ala. "The town itself is small, but the storm concentrated in that area," said Lisa Sulkosky of the Autauga County Emergency Management Agency. County Emergency management director Randy Taylor said only one person was injured in the town.

Mack Clark and his wife escaped injury in Autaugaville by hiding in a hall closet as the twister peeled the roof off their house. "It brushed up against our back," he said.

More damage was reported in a half-dozen other Alabama counties, and fallen trees blocked highways.

One person was killed in Olla, La., and several homes were "completely torn up" late Tuesday, said LaSalle Parish Sheriff Carl Smith. Olla, with a population of around 1,400, is about 65 kilometres north of Alexandria.

"It cut a path through the middle of town," Smith said.

A twister touched down early Wednesday north of Slidell, La., a suburb of New Orleans, damaging as many as 50 homes and injuring a half-dozen people, said St. Tammany Parish sheriff's spokesman James Hartman. A tornado apparently hit the Jefferson Parish city of Westwego, just south of New Orleans, early Wednesday, tearing off roofs and heavily damaging several businesses, said Police Chief Dwayne Munch.

In Mississippi, a tornado killed one person in a house and injured two outside Louisville, said Clarence Kelley, the county civil defence director. Damage also was reported in scattered communities elsewhere across the state.

The house "was flattened. It was scattered everywhere. There was nothing left at the site itself," Kelley said.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour declared a state of emergency Wednesday.

About a dozen tornadoes struck Texas on Tuesday afternoon and evening. Four of them hit Hardin County, killing a woman and injuring three other people, a sheriff's department dispatcher said.

Authorities believe three other tornadoes hit the town of Kirbyville within minutes of one another, said Billy Ted Smith, emergency management co-ordinator for Jasper, Newton and Sabine counties.

BEIJING, Nov. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- The drought is worsening in Guangdong, threatening the late rice harvest, as well as other crops.

More than 730,000 hectares of farmland were reported to have been affected by drought Saturday, 20,000 hectares greater than the figure reported at the end of October.

More than 36,667 hectares were barren, an increase of 2,667 hectares compared with last month's figures.

Some 85 cities and counties in Guangdong, or more than 80 percent of the province, have been affected by drought, according to an official from the Guangdong Provincial Water Conservation Department.

The water level in the Dongjiang River, a major tributary of the Pearl River, had fallen by at least 80 percent compared with last year. [...]

Yellowstone County is among 34 Montana counties that have been declared natural disaster areas because of the lingering drought.

On Tuesday, Yellowstone County commissioners received a letter from Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman that declares a drought disaster through two-thirds of Montana's 56 counties. [...]

About a dozen families in southeastern Indiana have a special reason to be thankful this Thanksgiving Day.

Their homes were damaged when a tornado or severe thunderstorm skipped through their communities Wednesday night, but no one was reported hurt. [...]

Several tornado sightings were reported in southeastern Indiana on Thanksgiving Eve as powerful storms cut two paths near Greater Cincinnati but spared the city.

The metropolitan area was under a tornado watch for several hours, but the storms passed west and east of Cincinnati.

The storm system that moved through Fayette, Union and Franklin counties produced large hail and winds up to 80 mph that even blew a semi off the highway. [...]

Drought-stricken central Vietnam has issued a flood alert as rains triggered by an approaching typhoon have swept away at least one person.

Rains started this week in the central region, bringing relief to rice farmers who had faced drought since September.

Disaster management officials in the coastal province of Quang Ngai have issued a high flood alert as upstream waters pour in.

One man has died after being swept away in the province.

The typhoon has destroyed 200 houses in the southern region where a sailor is missing after his boat capsized. [...]

FORT BEAUFORT - The "worst drought in years" in the Nkonkobe Municipal area has sparked fears of a cholera outbreak in rural villages.

The provincial government and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry have been asked to intervene as tens of thousands of people are suffering in an area where 90 percent of rural villages are without water. [...]

"Except for a few villages, there is absolutely no reticulation," said Nkonkobe mayor Mandisile Mdleleni yesterday.

He said the problem started earlier in the week when he was inundated with calls from various sectors of the community pleading for assistance.

"Those who had no option but to use polluted river and dam water in the past are in the same predicament as these rivers and dams have dried up as well. In the light of the prevailing circumstances, an outbreak of cholera is imminent."

Fort Beaufort villages are the worst affected, as water from the Kat River is moving too slowly to fill reservoirs that feed the rural areas. The water evaporates before it can be reticulated to the villages.

The Middledrift situation was worsened by technical problems in the water reticulation infrastructure at Sandile Dam near Keiskammahoek.
Since the rural taps, dams and rivers have dried up, many villagers have had to walk or drive to get water from urban towns. [...]

Officials in Cambodia say drought has hit a fifth of the country's rice growing land.

A poor monsoon season has affected more than 520,000 hectares of Cambodia's 2.5 million hectares of paddy.

Reuters news agency says the drought has destroyed nearly 124,000 hectares of paddy and seriously affected nearly 400,000 hectares. [...]

KINGSTON -- A tornado was reported in Lomontville and more than 3,000 lost power as a strong, fast-moving cold front swept through the region Thursday morning.

About 3,500 Central Hudson customers lost power between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. as strong winds felled trees onto powerlines, said Central Hudson spokesman Paul Tesoro. About 1,500 were still without service Thursday evening but full restoration was expected by daybreak Friday, he said.

Hardest hit were the City of Kingston, Marbletown, Wawarsing and Rochester, where a combined 1,455 customers lost power. [...]

Glenwood Springs, CO, -- A huge rock slide Thursday in western Colorado Thursday forced the closure of a stretch of Interstate 70, forcing motorists to detour more than 200 miles. The slide occurred about nine miles east of Glenwood Springs in Glenwood Canyon, CNN reported. Glenwood Springs is halfway between Vail and Grand Junction.

The Colorado transportation department closed east- and westbound lanes for a 17-mile stretch and said it could be a week before the road reopens.

Workers trying to clear the highway were using dynamite on large boulders and jackhammers on others.

"It's very severe," said department spokeswoman Nancy Shanks. "There's some big rocks that have come down."

Between 30 and 40 large rocks tumbled onto the road, including boulders up to 8 feet by 10 feet, the department said.

"It is estimated that about a half-dozen boulders are embedded between 6 and 8 feet into the roadway," Shanks said.

The highway closure comes during Thanksgiving, which is one of the busiest travel periods of the year

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - The death toll from floods and landslides has risen to 21 and two people remain missing following heavy rains in central Vietnam where water levels continue to rise, officials said Saturday.

Up to 125 centimetres of water has been dumped on the region over the last four days and moderate rains were reported Saturday in low-lying areas in four provinces following the worst drought since 1998, officials said.

Disaster officials in Thua Thien Hue province forecast more rain for the next couple of days. [...]

RENO, Nev. -- Thousands of passengers were grounded Saturday during a snowstorm at Reno-Tahoe International Airport on its busiest weekend of the year.

At nearby Lake Tahoe and elsewhere in the Sierra Nevada, the storm dumped up to 18 inches of snow and delayed thousands of Thanksgiving holiday motorists heading over mountain passes.

Sixty-nine flights at the airport were canceled or delayed during a seven-hour period Saturday after a malfunction in equipment used to guide pilots when visibility is poor, spokesman Brian Kulpin said.

The instrument landing system is maintained and operated by the Federal Aviation Administration, which fixed the problem after the storm had left up to 6 inches of snow in Reno.

Travelers were urged to contact their airlines before heading to the airport because delays were expected to continue. Kulpin said some passengers might not be able to get a flight from Reno until Tuesday because flights are booked solid Sunday and Monday.

"This has such a ripple effect throughout the system," Kulpin said. "It has impacts on other airports because there are people stranded at other airports."

The Sunday after Thanksgiving traditionally is the airport's busiest day of the year, with about 10,000 passengers using the facility.

Kulpin said airport officials were livid because it was the second time this month the instrument landing system malfunctioned during a storm. [...]

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, - A powerful cyclone, which hit Russia's Kamchatka on Saturday night, has grounded passenger planes bound from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky for the mainland, sources from Kamchatka's main airport told Itar-Tass. Flights are expected to resume after 5 am, Moscow time, on Sunday.

The cyclone hit the southern part of the peninsula overnight to Sunday. The wind is blowing at a speed of 24 meters per second on south-eastern and south-western coasts of the peninsula.

The Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Yelizovo and Ust-Bolsheretsky districts are the most hit by the cyclone. Twenty percent of a monthly norm of snow has fallen there over the past few hours.

Meteorologists say the storm will hover over the region till Monday.

HOBART, Australia (AP) - A total of 80 whales and dolphins died after swimming on to a beach on a southern Australian island where rescue teams Monday were desperately trying to prevent others from becoming stranded, a government official said.

The dead animals - 55 pilot whales and 25 bottlenose dolphins - were discovered Sunday afternoon at Sea Elephant Bay on King Island between the Australian mainland and the southeast island state of Tasmania, said Warwick Brennan, a state government environment spokesman.

Late Sunday night, police herded 30 other dolphins and 12 whales out to sea.

Brennan said another group of about 20 whales had been spotted Monday close to shore. A whale rescue team would try to stop them joining the animals on the beach.

"The team will be using boats to try to shepherd them away from the beach out into deeper water," Brennan said.

Brennan said the success of the rescue would depend on the condition of the animals and the depth of the water.

Brennan described the beach Monday morning where the strandings occurred as a terrible sight.

"It is quite grim," he said. "You've got a large number of spectacular animals that are dead on the beach."

"There are some baby whales as well, so it's not a pleasant sight," he added.

The beaching comes a year after 110 pilot whales and 10 bottlenose dolphins died when they were stranded on Tasmania's remote west coast.

Scientists at the time said a predator, such as a killer whale, may have driven the animals to their deaths.

HANOI (Reuters) - Floods and landslides have killed at least 40 people in Vietnam and 42 are missing, officials say, and elderly wooden houses inundated at a world heritage site are in danger of collapsing.

The floods, sparked by torrential rains from Typhoon Muifa last week, have submerged 170,000 houses in five provinces and destroyed roads, cutting food relief to many areas.

Thousands of people have fled their homes and an official said on Monday 270,000 people in just one of the affected provinces needed urgent help. [...]

JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- A drought in part of grain-producing regions of South Africa has become critical with little time left to plant next year's harvest, Grain SA said on Monday.

Grain SA chairman Bully Botma said, "Although rain fell this weekend in some western production areas, it was too little and not spread out well enough for farmers to start planting."

About 25 to 40 mm of rain fell in the Schweizer Reneke districtof North West province, enough for farmers there to plough, but insufficient to plant. [...]

Another 50 pilot whales were also reported to have stranded themselves on Maria Island, some 500 kilometres (300 miles) away to the south east of Australia's island state of Tasmania. [...]