China's worst snowstorms in 50 years have killed a total of 129 people so far this winter, Xinhua news agency reported, citing official data.
The agency quoted the Ministry of Civil Affairs as saying the extreme weather has cost the country's economy $21 billion.
Snow and cold weather in China have affected 70 million people in 20 provinces, including Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan in central, southern and eastern China.
About 1.66 million people are reported to have been evacuated from the blizzard-hit areas and over 485,000 buildings have collapsed.
Eric Beech
ReutersMon, 03 Mar 2008 13:44 UTC
A strong earthquake of 7.0 magnitude struck in the ocean off the east coast of the Philippines on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The quake, which struck at 10:11 p.m. local time (1411 GMT), was centered about 116 miles (187 km) east-southeast of Pandan, Catanduanes, at a depth of 20.5 miles (33 km), USGS said.
BERLIN - Hurricane-strength winds howled across Europe over the weekend, killing 13 people and leaving a trail of destruction as cars were blown off the road, roofs were ripped off and trees fell like matchsticks.
The storm, dubbed "Emma" by forecasters, brought with it winds of up to 200 kilometres (125 miles) an hour and heavy rains as it ripped its way across central Europe.
RNWSat, 01 Mar 2008 15:50 UTC
Storm Emma has left a trail of destruction across Europe. Nine people have in total have lost their lives, four in Austria, three in Germany, and two in the Czech Republic. In the United Kingdom thousands of rail passengers suffered delays caused by the severe weather conditions. High winds blew several containers from goods trains onto the rails, blocking the most important rail routes between England and Scotland.
An earthquake in central Italy measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale was felt in the cities of Florence and Bologna, news reports said.
No injuries to people or damage to buildings were immediately reported in the earthquake which struck early Saturday, the ANSA news agency said.
Catherine Elsworth
TelegraphTue, 26 Feb 2008 23:54 UTC
Global warming sceptics are pointing to recent record cold temperatures in parts of North America and Asia and the return of Arctic Sea ice to suggest fears about climate change may be overblown.
According to the US National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), the average temperature of the global land surface in January 2008 was below the 20th century mean (-0.02°F/-0.01°C) for the first time since 1982.
An avalanche in the Issyk-Kul district in northern Kyrgyzstan, has left five people dead, the Central Asian state's emergencies ministry said on Friday.
The tragedy occurred on Thursday evening near the mountainous resort of Lake Issyk Kul. Rescuers have managed to recover three of the bodies while the search is continuing for the others, a spokesman said.
An avalanche hit a passenger train overnight injuring the driver and blocking the track in the Chelyabinsk district, a South Urals railways spokesman said on Friday.
"The locomotive and the first two carriages, one of which was a freight wagon, took the brunt of the impact. The driver was hospitalized with leg fractures, but no passengers were injured," the spokesman said.
A scientist who mapped his genome and the genetic diversity of the oceans said Thursday he is creating a life form that feeds on climate-ruining carbon dioxide to produce fuel.
Are the world's ice caps melting because of climate change, or are the reports just a lot of scare mongering by the advocates of the global warming theory?
Scare mongering appears to be the case, according to reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that reveal that almost all the allegedly "lost" ice has come back. A NOAA report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels.
