The roof of a resort auditorium collapsed during a welcoming ceremony for South Korean university freshmen, killing nine and likely trapping about 10, officials said Tuesday.

The dead included seven students and an adult; officials weren't sure yet if the ninth victim was a student. About 80 people were sent to hospitals with minor injuries, according to officials at the state-run National Emergency Management Agency who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media.

The UK has been battered by strong winds and lashed by heavy rain in a series of ferocious storms that have barrelled across the Atlantic.

The storms, which began in October last year, have forced many from their homes and are set to make the 2013-14 winter the wettest on record. More than 5,000 homes and businesses have been flooded and many rivers in southern England have reached their highest ever recorded levels.

• Sinkholes seen in Kent, South-East London and Hemel Hempstead
• One in High Wycombe engulfed a car as it was parked in the driveway
• Expert believes sinkholes are appearing five times their normal rate
• Forecast heavy rain could mean more holes appear around the country

On Saturday, a huge sinkhole opened up at the side of a house in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. Swallowing up half of the front lawn, it was 35ft wide and 20ft deep.

Last week, a hole as deep as a double-decker bus is high suddenly opened up in the back-garden of a house in South-East London, almost swallowing a child's trampoline as the ground collapsed without warning.

Had the poor owner's daughter been rushing out to play on the trampoline, she could have very easily have been seriously injured or even killed.


Two weeks ago, there was a similarly narrow escape for a family living in High Wycombe, when, overnight, a deep hole appeared without warning in the driveway just next to the house.

This time the adult daughter's car did end up buried at the bottom of the hole, thankfully, while there was no one in it.

And in Kent last week, motorists hoping to use the M2 were left fuming by the motorway's temporary closure, after a substantial hole - 15ft deep - suddenly appeared in the central reservation. Again, no one was hurt but had the hole opened up just a few yards away, it is obvious what a different story it could so easily have been.

All of these holes are what the public call sinkholes and now, after weeks of heavy rain, they seem to be appearing with ever greater regularity. Hard statistics are difficult to find - not least because sinkholes that appear on farmland often go unreported - but having studied them for 35 years, I'd estimate that sinkholes are currently appearing at four-to-five times their normal rate.

A shocking 65 per cent of forest elephants have been illegally killed for their ivory in between 2002 and 2013 new data from the field in Central Africa shows. Many organisations collaborated in the study, which was coordinated by WCS, and covered 80 sites, in five countries, over the twelve years of data collection.

"These new numbers showing the continuing decline of the African forest elephant are the exact reason why there is a sense of urgency at the United for Wildlife trafficking symposium in London this week," said Dr. John Robinson, WCS Chief Conservation Officer and Executive Vice President of Conservation and Science. "The solutions we are discussing in London this week and the commitments we are making cannot fail or the African forest elephant will blink out in our lifetime. United for Wildlife, which is headed by The Duke of Cambridge, is determined to work together to turn back these numbers."

Conservationists gathered at the United for Wildlife symposium - "International Wildlife Trafficking: Solutions to a Global Crisis" are discussing ways to protect wildlife and combat trade.

Said WCS's Dr. Fiona Maisels, one of the researchers releasing the new numbers and a co-author of the landmark paper: "At least a couple of hundred thousand forest elephants were lost between 2002-2013 to the tune of at least sixty a day, or one every twenty minutes, day and night. By the time you eat breakfast, another elephant has been slaughtered to produce trinkets for the ivory market."

The results show that the relatively small nation of Gabon has the majority (almost 60 percent) of the remaining forest elephants, while historically, the enormous Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) would have held the largest number of forest elephants. "The current number and distribution of elephants is mind-boggling when compared to what it should be," said WCS's Dr. Samantha Strindberg, one of the co-authors. "About 95 percent of the forests of DRC are almost empty of elephants."

Homes in Croxley Green had to be evacuated after a 20ft deep sinkhole emerged in the back garden of one of the properties.

Police were called to the house in Dugdales at around 6pm yesterday after the hole, which is approximately 5ft by 5ft wide, was discovered.

As the sinkhole was close to the property, a house and three flats, in the cul de sac were evacuated.

Residents were not allowed back into their homes this morning.

Winter administered a fresh whipping to parts of the Northeast overnight, as a new storm brought more snow and high winds to the region.

The latest blast came as residents were still digging out from a major storm that caused at least 25 deaths, and at its height, left hundreds of thousands without power on the East Coast and in the South.

New England was absorbing the worst of the weekend storm, which was moving in Saturday evening. Up to 12 inches of snow fell in eastern Massachusetts, and parts of Maine and Rhode Island overnight, Weather Channel meteorologist Mark Swaim said.

New York City and Boston, which both saw flurries overnight, were waking up to lower than average temperatures: Upper 20s in Beantown and lower 30s in the Big Apple.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick on Saturday warned drivers to stay off the roads for a 12-hour period beginning at 5 p.m., saying, "It won't be possible to keep up with the clearing of the roads."

• 16 severe flood warnings remain in place - two in Somerset and 14 along the River Thames in Berkshire and Surrey
• More than 300 other flood warnings and alerts have been issued in the South East, South West and the Midlands
• Homeowners who've already had to evacuate their homes have pleaded for troops to stop looters raiding properties
• EA chief: 'Anyone who builds in a flood plain or buys a property in a flood plain needs to think about the flood risk'

Lord Smith has appeared to suggest developers and buyers of homes in flood plains must take their share of the blame for the flooding crisis.

The embattled Environment Agency chairman, who is a former Labour Cabinet minister, has risked fresh controversy over his comments.

He said: 'Anyone who builds in a flood plain, anyone who buys a property in a flood plain, needs to think about the flood risk.'

David Cameron, who is struggling to contain a Cabinet war over the official response to the floods, has refused to rule out sacking Lord Smith.

He pledged 'no restraints' on disaster spending as Labour accused ministers of 'fighting like rats in a sack' in an unedifying blame game with the EA.

The last two weeks have been marked by a run of storms in the Atlantic that have brought very high winds and seemingly endless rainfall. At first we worried about the weather's impacts on the land with widescale flooding in southern England. How would landbirds find enough food if the ground became saturated and the rain prevented them from foraging. Even our garden birds were suffering.

At the same time our coasts were being battered with high winds and huge waves. As defences were being breached, seawater was coming inland and would impact on plant communities and eventually their associated birds. Then, last week we started to see exactly what the storms were also doing to our seabird populations. North-west Europe has many millions of seabirds and the majority of these winter out in the Atlantic. We could only guess what it must be like out there for small birds that need to be able to dive for fish in roaring seas and winds up to 100 mph.

A warmer Arctic could permanently affect the pattern of the high-altitude polar jet stream, resulting in longer and colder winters over North America and northern Europe, US scientists say.

The jet stream, a ribbon of high altitude, high-speed wind in northern latitudes that blows from west to east, is formed when the cold Arctic air clashes with warmer air from further south.

The greater the difference in temperature, the faster the jet stream moves.

According to Jennifer Francis, a climate expert at Rutgers University, the Arctic air has warmed in recent years as a result of melting polar ice caps, meaning there is now less of a difference in temperatures when it hits air from lower latitudes.

"The jet stream is a very fast moving river of air over our head," she said Saturday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"But over the past two decades the jet stream has weakened. This is something we can measure," she said.

A mystery loud droning noise 'like Independence Day' has been reported in the skies above Coventry.

The sounds - compared to something out of the hit blockbuster film about alien invasion - have been audible during recent stormy weather.

Reports have described a loud noise in the sky which lasted around one minute and was heard by residents in Whitley, Walsgrave, Stoke and Wyken. Mitch Wise, 19, from Walsgrave, said the noise was so loud he could hear it inside his house despite all the windows and doors being closed.

He said: "I did think it sounded like something out of Independence Day, that kind of noise.

"I was just in my bedroom when I heard this loud noise outside my house. I looked outside my window, but I couldn't see anything.

"I saw two guys looking up to the sky outside. It was scary!

"I thought it was thunder at first but it was too long to be that or a jet.

"It was like a loud droning noise that lasted about a minute. I was just confused, I couldn't work out what it was.

"It was a lot louder than a lorry going past. It was loud with all the windows closed, but when I opened them it was really loud."

Another reader told the Coventry Telegraph the noise sounded like a hurricane.