As bowling ball-size chunks of ice fell on him from the roof of Cowboys Stadium on Friday afternoon, Win McNamee said he didn't think he would survive.

"Honestly, while it was hitting me, I was thinking I'm going to die here," McNamee said. "It was pretty frightening."

McNamee, a veteran photographer who works for Getty Images, was one of six people injured by falling ice outside the site of Sunday's Super Bowl XLV in Arlington. He broke his left shoulder in four places and was planning to fly home to Washington, D.C., on Saturday and undergo surgery soon.

None of the other injuries were thought to be life-threatening, authorities said. One person remained hospitalized in stable condition Friday evening, officials said.

McNamee said he was at the stadium to take snow-related photos when he heard what sounded like jet engines and spotted an "avalanche of ice."

"I had nowhere to go," he said. "It hurt pretty bad."

After weeks of persistent cloud cover, the skies above Brazil finally cleared enough for satellites to take stock of the mudslides that devastated the states of Rio de Janeiro, Santa Catarina, and São Paulo in mid-January.

The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA's EO-1 satellite captured these true-color images of the hills north and west of Teresópolis, Brazil, on February 2, 2011 (top), and May 24, 2010. In both images, forested land is dark green, while land that has been cleared is light green. The 2011 image shows dozens of tan stripes where the hillsides have been overrun by mudslides, usually within or adjacent to those light green patches.

Nearly a month's worth of rain - 26 centimeters (10 inches) - fell on January 12 in the Serra do Mar mountain region and the nearby cities of Teresópolis and Nova Friburgo. The downpours provoked flash floods and sent rivers of mud flowing down steep hillsides, killing 860 people and leaving at least 8,700 homeless. 429 people have not yet been accounted for, according to Agencia Brazil, the state news service.

The unusually heavy rains were attributed by some meteorologists to La Niña, but human activity likely exacerbated the scale of the disaster. Rapid population growth in the area has led Brazilians to build favelas (self-built settlements) on the steep slopes above Teresópolis. Those structures have been built on previously forested land, so the reduced tree cover has diminished the ability of the soil to hold water and the hills to hold onto the soil. Many of the houses lost, according to reports, were built on slopes of 45 degrees or more or in the buffer zones around rivers and streams. The Brazilian Forest Code officially forbids building in such areas.

Zamboanga City, Philippines - At least seven persons, including three children, downed in floods that swept through three Mindanao towns on Wednesday and Thursday, officials said Friday.

Five of the fatalities were reported to have died in downtown Jolo Thursday evening as heavy rains, big waves and three coastal tornadoes battered the capital of the island province of Sulu, said the Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council and a Roman Catholic priest.

Jolo Mayor Hussin Amin said reports reaching him indicated that three people, two of them children, were killed and two others were missing. It was not immediately known if the new figure released by the provincial disaster coordinating council included those missing.

The council said 25 persons were injured.

Amin said it was the first time a flood of that magnitude - up to eight feet deep in the Asturias and San Raymundo areas - hit the town.

"This is the first time I witnessed this kind of flooding," he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone.

Amin described the situation in Jolo as akin to that experienced by some places in Metro Manila during the passage of Tropical Storm Ondoy in 2009.

Mount Shinmoedake straddling Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures will continue its explosive eruptions over the next couple of weeks, according to a report by the government's Coordinating Committee for Prediction of Volcanic Eruption.

As the 1,421-meter volcano keeps threatening the lives of local residents, the committee met for an emergency executive meeting at the Meteorological Agency in Tokyo on Feb. 3.

"Over the next one to two weeks, the volcano is expected to repeat its explosive eruptions, emitting as much lava as it is at the moment," the committee concluded.

The committee, however, did not make any long-term predictions about what the volcano will do. The panel of volcanologists and other experts will intensify observations and analyses of subterranean magma activities using seismometers and angle meters.

Shinmoedake, which featured in the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice, started erupting on 27 January after being quiet for 52 years. Eruptions spewed ash and smoke as high as 3000 m.

The Sakurajima volcano, further south, is also visible in the image. Sukurajima has been erupting almost constantly since 1955, producing thousands of small explosions every year.

The image was acquired on 4 February at 01:25 GMT by the MERIS instrument in full resolution mode.

Auburn, Massachusetts - State officials renewed their warnings yesterday about the danger of roof collapses, as weather forecasters said a storm today could drop up to 6 new inches of snow on some parts of the region.

"This is not a reason for panic, it's a reason for care and diligence,'' Governor Deval Patrick said at a midday news conference in Auburn. "This is a very tough time, a very tough set of circumstances. But people can do things to keep themselves, their families, and their co-workers safe.''

He said the warning signs of collapse from heavy snow and ice included doors sticking or opening on their own because the jambs have become out of line. Leaks, windows jamming, and cracking sounds are other signs, the governor said during a visit to Interstate Battery Center in Auburn, whose circular roof collapsed Thursday. No one was injured.

Marnie Fernandez had four children and a sick husband at home Friday but almost no milk or toilet paper. The blizzard that dumped 20 inches of snow, sleet and ice on Tulsa on Tuesday still had the area paralyzed, and while Fernandez had her driveway shoveled, several inches of snow and higher drifts blocked the streets of her neighborhood.

She had only a few granola bars and fruit snacks for the kids and worried that a new storm would collapse her roof. Looking outside, she watched water leak through the lights on the roof's overhang as it started to snow again.

"I've never seen anything like this where people literally can't get out of their houses," said Fernandez, 39, who's lived in Oklahoma most of her life. "You just realize you're not in control and you're at the mercy of Mother Nature."

Cyclone Yasi, which pounded northeastern Australia Friday, moved south as a tropical depression Saturday, bringing downpours and flash floods to the Melbourne region.

The Bureau of Meteorology said more than 175 millimeters of rain fell in parts of Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city, while powerful winds downed trees and power lines.

Queensland officials 2,000 kilometers to the north say the coastal communities of Cardwell, Tully and Mission Beach bore the full brunt of Cyclone Yasi, which made landfall early Thursday carrying winds as high as 300 kilometers an hour.

Five people have been killed in landslides and floods caused by heavy rains in Surigao provinces, authorities reported Friday.

Police found the bodies of Nenita Corpuz, 57 and Julie Culapu, 47 in Barangay Pantukan, Carrascal town in Surigao del Sur, around 7 p.m. Thursday.

Police said that Corpuz and Culapu were visiting their rice farms amid heavy rains when they were buried by a landslide.

In Surigao del Norte, Carlio Benocilla, 26 and Raymund Bonotan, 25 were also killed in a landslide in Barangay Masgad in Malimono town in Surigao del Norte.

Scotland was battered by a triple whammy of hurricane-strength winds, torrential rain and driving snow today forcing the closure of schools and causing problems on roads and communications.

The far north and north west bore the brunt of the weather as the storm tore in from the Atlantic this morning.

And tonight Strathclyde police advised drivers not to travel unless absolutely necessary.

One amateur weather station at Ness on the Isle of Lewis recorded a Hurricane gust of 91mph with more heavy weather expected tonight.

Schools and many businesses in the Western Isles closed at lunchtime to prepare for the high winds and heavy rains.

While the Northern Isles and Hebrides were facing winds of up to 90mph the central belt experiencing winds of 60-70mph on Thursday evening.