A period of heavy rainfall in France has caused rivers to rise and prompted authorities to issue flood warnings for 18 departments in the north and south west of the country.

More than half a month's worth of rain fell in parts of France in 24 hours from 31 January to 01 February, according to Meteo France. River levels are high and as of 02 February, 18 departments were under Orange level (3 of 4) warnings for flooding, including 3 departments in the north and 15 in the south west.

On 01 February a Red level warning was issued for the Maronne river in Argentat, Corrèze department. On 02 February the Maronne river at Basteyroux, Argentat-sur-Dordogne, reached 3.31 metres. Around 150 people were evacuated. The warning has since been downgraded.

Torrential rains caused flash floods Tuesday morning in Izmir, blocking main arteries in the downtown area and surrounding districts of Aliağa, Foça and Dikili. Calling the situation a disaster, the municipality urged residents not to leave their homes unless necessary. Media outlets, quoting the governor's office, said one person was killed in the floods in the province's Menderes district. Teams with Izmir Metropolitan Municipality are working around the clock to drain excess water.

Some streams in the Balçova district overflowed, and many residences and businesses in Karabağlar and Bayraklı were especially hit hard by the floods. Vehicles got stuck in the muddy waters, causing traffic jams in the early morning rush hours. The Turkish State Meteorological Service (TSMS) had previously warned of heavy rainfall for the province, which had started during the night and gradually increased its effectiveness. More severe rainfall was predicted for Tuesday, both for Izmir and nearby Aydın province.

"I have been living here for 30 years and have never seen such a disaster," Mehmet Akyol, a resident of Çetin Emeç neighborhood in Balçova district where a stream was clogged with debris and cars drifted by floodwaters piled up on each other, told Anadolu Agency (AA). Indeed, authorities announced that the rainfall, equivalent to what is normally seen over the entire month of February, battered the province in just eight hours. Municipality crews struggled to drain waters while Mayor Tunç Soyer called on motorists not to hit the roads for a while amid the flood danger. Soyer tweeted that streams overflowing their banks due to the rainfall caused disruptions to tram and bus services in some parts of the province. IZBAN, the province's main commuter rail system, temporarily suspended its service on one line. Soyer said extraordinary rainfall almost evolved into a disaster. Though floods are common during heavy rainfall in the province, it was unusual this time. Mayor Soyer later said in a written statement that the province had "18% of rainfall normally seen throughout the entire year." "126 kilograms of rainfall hit per square meter. This is a serious figure," he said. It was almost equal to the amount of rainfall that caused another flood disaster in the province in November 1995 when 61 people were killed. Izmir was also hit by floods in December though their density was lower.

Bermuda and Guam are islands separated by more than 14,000 km (8,700 miles), yet both suffered record cold over the weekend-a further indication of the global cooling we're all now experiencing.

The British Overseas Territory of Bermuda, located in the North Atlantic, set a record low temperature on Saturday-one coming hot on the heels of last Thursday's powerful winter storm, the island's fiercest in a decade.

The Bermuda Weather Service (BWS) confirmed Saturday morning's low.

"This morning's minimum reached a very chilly 49.1F (9.5C)," said a BWS spokesperson. "This sets a new record low for the date surpassing the previous record of 51.4F (10.8C) back in 2005. Our unofficial wind chill measurement produced a 'feels like temperature' near 40F (4.4C). Brrrrr!"

At least three dead left this Sunday a strong storm in the Paraguayan capital, which also caused the fire from a fuel tank of the state oil plant Paraguayan Petroleum (Petropar) on the outskirts of the city, authorities reported.

The rapids and the overflowing of streams also caused landslides and floods in several municipalities of the metropolitan area such as those of Luque, Mariano Roque Alonso and Limpio, with hundreds of families who momentarily left their homes, according to the media and video images on social networks.

Police sources confirmed the death of three people, a grandmother and her two grandchildren, aged 6 and 8, after the displacement of land from a ravine that buried the precarious home they occupied in the La Chacarita neighborhood of Asuncion.

Two unidentified men aged 22 and 21 died in Glendale, Mashonaland Central province after they encroached the edges of the flooded Mazowe River while taking pictures from their mobile phones before both slipped and drowned.

Mazowe assistant district development coordinator Willard Masimba confirmed the incident and urged people no to go to close to flooded rivers.

The incident happened a few hours after Bindura District development coordinator Richard Chipfuwa had issued a flood warning to communities in the Bindura, Mazowe area after two dams, Candy and Iron Duke, burst their walls resulting in the flooding of Mazowe River.

A Glendale resident Brian Jonga said Candy and Iron Duke dams burst their walls at around 7 am Sunday morning.

An official count in the park, home to the world's biggest concentration of rhinos, found it had lost two thirds of its animals in less than 10 years.

There are 3,549 white rhinos and 268 rarer black rhinos in the park in northeastern South Africa. In 2011 the white rhino population was estimated to be 10,621 and the black rhino 415. The decline has been most rapid since 2015 when there were estimated to be close to 9,000 white rhinos in the park.

Conservationists urged international governments to put pressure on South Africa to act urgently to halt the decline.

It had been hoped that a decrease in rhino poaching would have revived the species. But the latest figures, published in the South African National Parks annual report for 2019/2020, suggests that there is less poaching only because of a scarcity of rhino in Kruger.

A firefighter was killed on Monday in the region of Evros in northeastern Greece during an operation to rescue dozens of children that were trapped in a school flooded by torrential rains.

The incident occurred as the fire service was called to a kindergarten and a primary school in the small town of ​​Apalos, near Alexandroupolis.

The fire engine was swept away by the rushing waters and overturned. A 46-year-old firefighter lost his life n the accident.

The first nor'easter of 2021 is threatening a possible two feet of snow in New York City and other parts of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

The combination of heavy snow, gusty winds and coastal flooding was expected to make travel dangerous to impossible in much of the region Monday and could knock out power over a wide area.

"Make no mistake: this storm will bring heavy snowfall, and it will make travel dangerous in every neighborhood in our city," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said in declaring a state of emergency until 6 a.m. Tuesday. "New Yorkers should stay home, keep the roads clear for emergency vehicles, and let our plows work to keep us all safe."

Lava spewed from Italy's Mount Etna in a stunning site on Saturday night.

Mount Etna, located in Sicily, is Europe's most active volcano and one of three active volcanoes in Italy.

The site was secured as the volcanic activity was largely expected.

There were no reported injuries or deaths.

Etna is a popular tourist destination and its eruptions, especially when seen at night, are spectacular to watch.

Severe weather including strong winds, hail and record rainfall affected parts of southern-central Chile from 29 January, in particular areas of Santiago Metropolitan, O'Higgins, Valparaíso, Maule, Araucanía and Bío Bío Regions.

Rainfall has triggered flooding and landslides in several areas. The capital Santiago saw as much rain in 24 hours as it would normally see on average during the 6 month period November to April. According to Chile's meteorological office, Dirección Meteorológica de Chile, as much as 31.4mm of rain fell in 24 hours on 29 January in Quinta Normal, Santiago, beating the previous daily record total of 22.4mm set in 1933. T

Elsewhere in the country, Requinoa (O'Higgins Region) recorded 70.3mm of rain, Pirque (Santiago Metropolitan Region) 49.3mm and Longavi (Maule Region) 47mm during the same period.