The hardest hit region was the northwest, where at least 60 people died and hundreds of thousands were stranded in the region's worst flooding in decades.

Two elderly men clung to a fence post and each other as a raging torrent swept over their heads in the northwest Peshawar area, footage on Pakistan's Dunya TV showed. It was unclear whether they survived.

People were forced to trudge through knee-deep water in some streets in the Swat Valley. A newly constructed part of a dam in the Charsadda district collapsed, while the U.N. said it had reports that 5,000 homes were underwater in that area. At least 10 of 60 people reported dead in the previous 24 hours died near Peshawar when their homes crumbled. [ YAHOO NEWS ]

A village in southern China is suffering after an enormous landslide - triggered by an overwhelming rainstorm - buried dozens of homes, the Associated Press reports. Photos of the aftermath paint a stark picture of lives and livelihoods destroyed.

This is only the most recent flood and landslide to strike China. So far this year, floods have killed at least 823 people and inflicted tens of billions of dollars in property damage - and more rains are expected this week.

[ In Photos: Huge landslide in China ]

Storm-chasing scientists have wrapped up the most dangerous stage of the largest-ever study on why some storms become tornadoes and others don't.

In its latest tropical storm update, WSI called for 19 named storms, down from 20 in its June forecast, but maintained its outlook for 11 hurricanes and 5 intense hurricanes of category three or higher. The 2010 forecast is well above the 1950-2009 averages of 10 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2 intense hurricanes.

"Record warm tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures and an enabling wind shear environment should result in a very active tropical season this year," said Dr. Todd Crawford, WSI's chief meteorologist. The disappearance of the El Nino event and a decrease in vertical wind shear both point to the potential for more Atlantic storms, WSI said.

The situation along the nation's longest waterway was at a "critical point", Wang Jingquan, head of the flood control office at the Yangtze River Water Resources Commission, told AFP.

"If heavy rain hits the upper reaches of the river, the Yangtze River basin could suffer from flooding similar to 1998," he said. "And if you add the (imminent) landfall of Typhoon Conson, the situation along the Yangtze River basin is even less optimistic."

China experienced massive deadly floods in 1998 in parts of the Yangtze River basin, which acts as an unofficial dividing line between the north and south of the country. The disaster killed 4,150 people and forced over 18 million more out of their homes, causing economic losses of 255 billion yuan (38 billion dollars), according to state media reports. [ YAHOO NEWS ]

In Yunnan, four people were killed and 42 others went missing after landslides and floods hit Xiaohe Township, Qiaojia County, Zhaotong City, early Tuesday.

As of noon, 53 people had been injured in the disaster.

The provincial government has sent a relief team and relief supplies to Zhaotong. [ Xinhuanet ]

A seismic fault in the Sierra Nevada, believed to have been quiet for more than 3 million years, is active after all and capable of triggering strong quakes with magnitudes of 6 or even 7, scientists say.

The Kern Canyon Fault, stretching for nearly 90 miles from north to south above the San Joaquin Valley east of Bakersfield, cuts beneath a major flood control dam on the Kern River.

For a half-dozen years those who oversee the 57-year-old Isabella flood control dam above Bakersfield, as well as California Institute of Technology geologists, have been studying the fault closely.

"It came as a surprise to see that a long-inactive fault can produce significant quakes," said geologist Elisabeth Nadin of Caltech, who has hiked the sparsely populated rugged terrain and mapped where evidence showed the fault ruptured violently at least 3,300 years ago.

Geologists working for the Army Corps of Engineers have also studied the fault's potential for rupturing and are surveying the dam to determine whether it needs strengthening against future large quakes.

The fault emerged some 86 million years ago when the immense granite mass of the Sierra was uplifting, said Nadin, who has found the evidence of past violence in the rocks around it.

Space shuttles shatter. Bridges buckle. Hotel walkways collapse. Levees fail. An offshore oil rig explodes, creating the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

The common thread — which the new presidential oil spill commission will be looking for — often is technological arrogance and hubris. It's the belief by those in charge that they're the experts, that they know what they're doing is safe. Add to that the human weaknesses of avoidance, greed and sloppiness, say academics who study disasters. [ YAHOO NEWS ]

Just over a month into the 2010 Hurricane Season, we've already had an intense hurricane roam the Gulf of Mexico.

Hurricane Alex became the first Atlantic Basin June hurricane in 15 years.  It didn't stop there.  Alex became one of the most intense June hurricanes since the 1950s and 1960s. 

Given the ominous seasonal forecasts submitted by NOAA, Colorado State University, and WSI, you may wonder based on Alex, if we're headed for another destructive season like 2005. 

Let's shed some light on this by first comparing the '10 and '05 seasons-to-date.

Earthquakes are rattling the globe this year, but the number of atmospheric catastrophes, like floods, is multiplying faster as the world warms, according to the lead climate researcher at a global insurance corporation.

Haiti, Chile and China suffered jarring quakes in the first half of 2010, resulting in more than 225,000 deaths. Nearly all of those occurred in Haiti during a January shake, marking a global spree of tectonic rumblings that caused $38 billion in total losses, according to catastrophe data collected by insurance giant Munich Re.

But while the number of earthquakes that affect people is rising, it is eclipsed by a faster increase in the frequency of floods, storms and heat waves over the last 30 years, said Peter Höppe, who heads Munich Re's climate research center.

"There is a pronounced larger trend in the weather related events, compared to the geophysical events," he told reporters yesterday in a review of this year's damages.

In late 2004 and early 2005, disastrous earthquakes shook Sumatra, an island in western Indonesia. The two earthquakes, both among the biggest on record, struck just months apart along the same fault, yet the first quake produced the deadliest tsunami in modern history, while the second quake's tsunami was far less dramatic. A new study reveals why.

On Dec. 26, 2004 a 9.1-magnitude undersea earthquake rumbled near Sumatra and stretched 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) to the north. The resulting tsunami devastated coastlines along the Indian Ocean, with tsunami waves up to 100 feet (30 meters) high. More than 230,000 people died and millions were left homeless.

Three months later in 2005, an 8.7-magnitude earthquake hit immediately to the south and triggered a smaller tsunami that killed 1,300 people. Scientists were unsure why the quakes produced tsunamis that were so different since the ruptures were on adjacent segments of the same fault - a fracture in the Earth's crust.

• Storm off Louisiana coast headed for landfall soon
• Likely to become cyclone before hitting land - NHC
• Separate system brewing over southeastern Gulf

Here are a few oil spill myths and misconceptions, addressed by scientists, experts, and official sources: • The blown oil well has spewed so much oil and gas from the substrata of the Gulf floor that the earth around the wellhead could sink and crack, opening multiple oil gushers that could never be stopped. A variation of this scenario involves a sinkhole forming under the well that could collapse, sending tidal waves ashore, or a giant methane gas bubble exploding to similar effect. According to Gary Byerly, a professor of geology at Louisiana State University, none of this could occur.

The National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Alex will make landfall in northeastern Mexico sometime Wednesday night.

The storm is far from the Gulf oil spill, but cleanup vessels were sidelined by the hurricane's ripple effects. Six-foot waves churned up by the hurricane splattered beaches in Louisiana, Alabama and Florida with oil and tar balls.

Hurricane Alex flooded roads and forced thousands of people to evacuate fishing villages.The eye was about 55 miles (90 kilometers) northeast of La Pesca, Mexico, and about 105 miles (170 kilometers) south of Brownsville, Texas. [ NOAA ]

The first named storm of the 2010 Atlantic season, Alex's winds of 85 mph bent over palm trees near the port city of Matamoros across from Brownsville, Texas, while its rains swamped beaches. Soaked Mexican marines in towns in Tamaulipas state ushered residents and fisherman into shelters as 10-foot (3-meter)-high waves slammed into the shore.

"We're getting out of here, this looks really ugly," said a 50-year-old housewife who gave her name as Juana as she packed belongings into a truck in the beach town of Playa Bagdad. Alex looked set to grow into a robust Category 2 storm as it slams into Tamaulipas later on Wednesday then weaken back to a storm on Thursday, but its rains had already flooded highways as far inland as the industrial city of Monterrey. [ YAHOO NEWS ]

The Massachusetts Democrat's comments came during a congressional hearing on a law to improve technology intended to prevent disasters like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Officials responding to the oil spill in the Gulf Coast are scrambling to prepare for Hurricane Alex , which is expected to touch the lower half of the Rio Grande Valley tonight. The center of the storm is expected to hit 100 miles south of the U.S. border. [ KPLCTV.com ]

The hurricane was churning coastal waters across the oil-affected region on the Gulf of Mexico. Waves as high as 6 feet and winds over 25 mph were forecast through Thursday just off shore from the Mississippi Delta in Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.

In Louisiana, the storm pushed an oil patch toward Grand Isle and uninhabited Elmer's Island, dumping tar balls as big as apples on the beach. "The sad thing is that it's been about three weeks since we had any big oil come in here," marine science technician Michael Malone said. "With this weather,we lost all the progress we made."

Tropical Storm Alex is expected to intensify into Hurricane Alex in the coming hours, and become the first hurricane of the season, according to NOAA.

As of 10 a.m. CDT on Tuesday, Alex was about 355 miles (571 km) southeast of Brownsville, Texas, and had top wind speeds of 70 mph (112 kph). Tropical storms whose wind speeds increase to more than 74 mph (119 kph) are designated as hurricanes.

Alex is expected to continue on its northwestward path, and is currently moving at 12 mph (19 kph). The storm should stay on this course, with a slow turn toward Mexico anticipated overnight or Wednesday, according to NOAA. It is expected that the storm will make landfall late Wednesday night or in the early morning hours on Thursday, said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesperson for NOAA's National Hurricane Center in Miami. The storm will likely cross onto land in northern Mexico, just south of the Texas border. [ YAHOO NEWS ] - [ PREDICTED CONE IMAGE ]

Villagers huddled in tents set up at the site as rescuers searched for their family members. But there appeared to be little hope for survival, with no word on casualties or survivors by noon Tuesday, said Tian Maosheng, an official from Guizhou Communist Party Propaganda Department, who is helping with the rescue.

"The number 107 remains unchanged, and there is still no sign of life here," he said. [ YAHOO NEWS ]

Tropical Storm Alex, the first named system of the Atlantic hurricane season, strengthened today over open waters, forcing the evacuation of rigs in the Gulf of Mexico while pushing swells toward the worst U.S. oil spill.

The storm, packing maximum sustained winds of 70 miles (110 kilometers) per hour, was 380 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas, heading north-northwest at 12 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in a 7 a.m. CDT advisory. The circulating winds approached hurricane status of 74 mph.

A hurricane warning was issued for the coast of Texas near Padre Island to the mouth of the Rio Grande and south of the Mexico border to La Cruz, the hurricane center said. The storm will intensify and turn more to the northwest today, moving further from the oil spill, it said. BP Plc said efforts to contain the spill may be disrupted as weather conditions worsen.

Asia took the brunt of natural disasters in 2009, experiencing more than 40 percent of Mother Nature's havoc, with the Americas coming in second, according to a new report. The Philippines, China and the United States were the countries most often hit by notable natural disasters last year.

Overall in 2009, 335 natural disasters were reported worldwide, killing 10,655 people and affecting more than 119 million others. The economic damages from these events exceeded $41.3 billion in U.S. dollars. The number of disasters is actually down compared with the 2000-2008 annual average of 392, mostly because there were fewer storms and other meteorological disasters last year. Stories of hurricane winds and rain lashing the coasts of Florida, Louisiana and other southeastern states pop up in the news constantly during the summer, but warnings of Pacific storms such as Jimena are few and far between.

While there weren't any so-called mega-disasters , residents did feel the Earth shaking and burping scorching magma. The highest number of reported deaths was due to the earthquake in Sumatra, Indonesia on Sept. 30, which left 1,117 dead and more than 2.5 million others affected. The floods in July in Southern and Central China impacted the most individuals (39.4 million people).   In fact, only one hurricane is thought to have ever struck California, and that was clear back in 1858. Could it happen again? Not impossible, but also extremely unlikely in any given year.

Forecasters said Alex was moving slowly away from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

It is not expected to hurt current oil-capture systems at the BP oil spill or the company's plans to drill a pair of relief wells intended to plug the leak by August, a BP executive told reporters in Houston. [ YAHOO NEWS ]