Man swept along 15 metres on to railway line by torrent outside his home in Walsden following day of heavy rainfall

Roads and railway lines were submerged in water after torrential rain and flash flooding hit one small town for the second summer in a row.

Parts of the market town of Todmorden, West Yorkshire, were left under 45cm (18in) of water. Emergency services worked late into Monday night to clear the water and deal with hazards such as partially collapsed roads.

One resident in nearby Walsden was swept along about 15 metres by the torrent. He was carried downhill and ended up on the railway tracks at the end of his street.

Clearing out his flood-damaged home, the man said he was too shaken to talk about the incident.

One of his neighbours said: "The water was bubbling up and he was trying to redirect it. He went through the gate, was taken down the road and under the gate, on to the railway lines.

"He thought he was a goner. It's a fair distance. And with the torrent that was coming through, he's lucky to be alive today. Very, very lucky."

Dramatic mobile phone footage taken from inside office building shows the moment a tornado hit near Milan, injuring 12 people and filling the air with flying debris.

The twister swept through Grezzago, an industrial area of Milan in Italy on Monday, overturning vehicles, uprooting telegraph poles and damaging buildings.

Footage uploaded onto social media site www.youreporter.it shows the tornado swirling around the outside of an office building, hurling debris in the air.

No causalities were reported but at least 12 people were left injured by the tornado .

A cement truck proved to be too much for a street section on Xian's outskirts on Saturday, causing a seven-metre-deep sinkhole and raising questions over construction safety in China.

In the early morning, a cement truck was swallowed by a sinkhole as it was on its way to its daytime deployment in northern China's Shaanxi province. No one was injured, and the driver was able to escape the vehicle. It took urban authorities until 10pm to remove the truck from the site.

Coastguards have issued a warning to holidaymakers after a cliff fall at a "vulnerable" section of coast in Dorset.

The landslip took place at West Bay, near the area where holidaymaker Charlotte Blackman, 22, died when a cliff collapsed and crushed her last summer.

Heavy rainfall at the end of last week is thought to have made the land unstable and crumbly, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said.

No-one was injured in the landslip, which happened near Freshwater Beach Holiday Park on Friday and has left the cliff with an overhang.

A driver and his passengers had a lucky escape after the car he was driving was almost buried under a landslide in China.

Video of a car almost being washed away by floods and a landslide in northwest China has been released.

The footage shows the driver trying to get away from the deluge, but changing his mind when he realises what is happening.

All the car's occupants escaped unhurt.

Almost a million people have been affected by flooding in the region since the start of July.

Traverse City, Michigan - Already ravaged by toxic algae, invasive mussels and industrial pollution, the Great Lakes now confront another potential threat that few had even imagined until recently: untold millions of plastic litter bits, some visible only through a microscope.

Scientists who have studied gigantic masses of floating plastic in the world's oceans are now reporting similar discoveries in the lakes that make up nearly one-fifth of the world's fresh water. They retrieved the particles from Lakes Superior, Huron and Erie last year. This summer, they're widening the search to Lakes Michigan and Ontario, skimming the surface with finely meshed netting dragged behind sailing vessels.

"If you're out boating in the Great Lakes, you're not going to see large islands of plastic," said Sherri Mason, a chemist with State University of New York at Fredonia and one of the project leaders. "But all these bits of plastic are out there."

Experts say it's unclear how long "microplastic" pollution has been in the lakes or how it is affecting the environment. Studies are under way to determine whether fish are eating the particles.

The newly identified hazard is the latest of many for a Great Lakes fish population that has been hammered by natural enemies like the parasitic sea lamprey, which nearly wiped out lake trout, and man-made contamination. Through it all, the fishing industry remains a pillar of the region's tourist economy. Until the research is completed, it won't be clear whether the pollution will affect fishing guidelines, the use of certain plastics or cities that discharge treated wastewater into the lakes.

A severe hailstorm hit German village of Wassel in Sehnte Saturday evening.

German hailstones were the size of tennis balls. Hailstones damaged roofs, windows and several vehicles, local medias reported.

The most catastrophic hailstorm in Europe struck Munich, Germany on July 12, 1984. Germany hailstorm damaged some 70,000 homes and injured 400 people. Germany hailstorm damage was estimated at over US$2 billion.

Below is a raw you tube video of German hailstorm by Associated Press.

A sinkhole under the Ivy Ridge Apartments in Cobb County is still growing this week and residents said they may never be able to live in their apartments again.

Seven people died yesterday on a series of beaches in the south of France which are hugely popular with British tourists.

High winds which reached speeds of up to 80mph and unpredictable currents were blamed for the so-called 'Black Sunday' in the Herault department, which is on the Mediterranean coast.

At least three other people were tonight in a 'serious condition' after escaping from the sea.

Extreme weather being driven by climate change is the biggest threat to British farming and its ability to feed the nation's growing population, according to Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers' Union.

His comments, in an interview with the Guardian, come after a week of intense weather extremes. Last Monday, west London experienced the hottest day for seven years, while on Tuesday the drought in many parts of the country came to an end with intense thunderstorms that brought almost a month of rain in a day to parts of Worcestershire. Torrential downpours also put a dampener on the first weekend of the school summer holidays, with flash-flooding in parts of the south-east and the Midlands.

"The biggest uncertainty for UK agriculture is extreme weather events," said Kendall, who grows wheat and barley on the 250-hectare (620 acre) farm in Bedfordshire he runs with his brother. "I sometimes have a pop at those who say climate change is going to help farming in northern Europe.