Weather

Monsoon rains cleared the air over Southeast Asia on Wednesday, bringing relief to millions who have suffered for months from a choking haze that has endangered their health. "The whole region is clearing," said Wong Teo Suan of Singapore's Meteorological Services. "Whatever remains behind should be doused by rain."

Heavy rain pounded Ethiopia again Saturday, feeding the overflowing rivers that have killed some 2,000 people and are threatening to create an inland sea in southern Somalia. A month of flooding has inundated large areas of southern Somalia between the Ethiopian border and the Indian Ocean. High water has wiped out the freshly harvested staple crop of sorghum and left hundreds of thousands homeless and hungry. The death toll is rising so fast that aid agencies can only guess at the carnage. David Neff, CARE's director for Somalia, said any estimate below 2,000 dead "has got to be conservative." He said the Juba River, which originates in Ethiopia and runs south to the Somali port of Kismayo, is now eight miles wide at some points. "Normally, this is what we would call a creek in the American Midwest," Neff said. The Red Cross has been making twice-a-day deliveries of high-protein biscuits and plastic sheeting, landing at the few airstrips in Somalia that were still above water. Pilots have spotted families stuck for days in trees. Other bits of high ground will be wiped out if the floods rise just a few feet more, said spokesman Josue Anselmo. Ten more days of rain are forecast for Ethiopia, also the origin of the overflowing Shabelle river. According to the Somali Flood Response office, an estimated 210,000 people have fled their homes, and there was fear that the Juba and the Shabelle might merge to create an inland sea covering 60 square miles. The U.N. World Food Program said more than 148,200 acres of prime farm land was underwater. "Somalia just reaped its best sorghum harvest in years," Anne Mulcahy of Save the Children said. "The floods have ruined everything." Flash floods submerged 90 percent of the town of El-Waq on the Somali-Kenyan border Thursday night, killing at least 125 people and forcing 17,000 others to flee to higher ground. Another 84 towns also had to be abandoned. Agencies have had little success so far in their appeal for helicopters to airdrop food and medicine. UNICEF spokeswoman Lynn Geldof said agencies had received pledges of about half the $9.6 billion needed. Somalia has had no central government since January 1991, when armed factions ousted late dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, then turned against each other. Many donor countries are reluctant to return to Somalia, where their missions were attacked and robbed beginning in 1992 by warring militia during a three-year U.S.-led effort to help famine victims. Most agencies pulled out in 1995. Patrick Berner, head of the Red Cross delegation for Somalia, said the situation has changed from a conflict to a natural disaster. "We cannot close our eyes," he said. "People are dying every day in Somalia."

Heavy rain and swollen rivers roaring down from the mountains in neighboring Ethiopia hampered international efforts Thursday to rescue Somalis trapped by nearly a month of flooding. At least 72 more people drowned in the flooded Juba Valley Thursday, bringing the death toll to 520 since rains began Oct. 5, Wendy Driscoll of CARE International said. Aid workers feared the number of dead could be much higher. In villages south of Baidoa, the situation was so bad that some residents climbed to the tops of trees to escape the flood waters - and have been stuck there for nearly a week, aid workers said. Stockpiled food and emergency supplies have been threatened by rising waters, airfields have been flooded and bridges washed away. Relief workers have reported an outbreak of disease among livestock in Badhade, where at least 11,000 head of cattle have died. In some places, land mines planted during Somalia's six-year civil conflict have risen to the surface, posing yet another hazard. The Juba River Valley, 250 miles southwest of Mogadishu, is the breadbasket of Somalia. Floods have destroyed most of the harvested reserves and freshly planted sorghum, a staple grain crop. The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have started flying in medicine, blankets and plastic boats to the three airstrips still above water. The European Union said Thursday it was allocating $2.5 million to the Somali operation, and the United Nations is negotiating with France and Germany to get helicopters for an evacuation operation.

Hurricane Rick walloped Mexico's southern coast, an area still hurting from last month's visit by Hurricane Pauline. But residents learned their lesson and they were prepared. Mindful of the extraordinary force of Pauline, villagers who greeted that storm with cynicism fled to sturdy houses on high ground for Rick's arrival Sunday evening and stayed away from the banks of rivers. And while Pauline killed at least 230 people in its charge up the coastline, not a single death was reported in Rick's romp.

A resident of Song Doc sorts through the debris of her home after Typhoon Linda swept through this province south of Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday. Photo by Associated Press

Furniture and other debris hang from railings at the twin-towered Diamond Head Point condominiums in New Smyrna Beach, Fla. Photo by Associated Press

The tiny coastal village of Ribeira Quente buried some of its dead Sunday as the storm that killed 29 people moved away from the Azores and battered the Portuguese mainland. Rescue workers on Sunday found 11 more bodies buried under a mudslide caused by the flash floods that swept the archipelago's largest island of Sao Miguel on Friday. Civil protection officials said the final death toll was 29. No one else was missing, they said. Eight people were buried Sunday at a cemetery only yards from the site of the landslide. Ten other victims were buried Saturday. The storm moved away from the group of Atlantic islands late Friday and reached the western coast of Portugal, 900 miles to the northeast, Saturday night.

Some of the thousands of people in Nebraska's largest cities grew angry and impatient as they waited for crews to bring electricity back to homes that have been without power since Sunday. "I'm about ready to snap someone's head off," 61-year-old Jo Schutte said as she waited for power to be restored in her Omaha home.

Trucks loaded with tree branches line up on a Lincoln, Neb., street as they wait their turn at a drop-off site Tuesday. It is estimated the city may lose 25,000 trees in the aftermath of last weekend's storm. About 32,000 people, primarily in Omaha and Lincoln, were without electricity Wednesday for the fourth day after the storm. Photo by Associated Press

Burning near the northern Brazilian city of Manaus is choking the 1.1 million residents, and drought further adds to their woes. Photo by Associated Press

A resident of Denver attempts to clear snow in front of his home Monday. Photo by Associated Press

A boy makes his way through snowdrifts in Colorado Springs, Colo. Photo by Associated Press

Fresh from his workout at the Denver Athletic Club, Robert Graham uses his cross-country skis to navigate Bannock Street as he heads home early Saturday. Photo by Associated Press

The biggest rockslides in more than half a century at Mount Adams probably were triggered by rain, and there is no sign the 12,276-foot volcano will erupt anytime soon, scientists say. "The upper parts of the Cascade volcanoes are as saturated with water as they've been for some time," said Richard Iverson, a landslide specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey's Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver.

Police stand near a line of 100 people waiting at the entrance of a facility where the Mexican military was distributing food and clothing to hurricane victims. Photo by Associated Press

The winds have yet to blow. The rain has yet to pour. But this fall, the threat of a powerful wallop from El Nino hangs like a rare storm cloud over the perpetually sunny skies of Southern California. Constant publicity about the unpredictable worldwide weather phenomenon has brought big business to West Coast insurance agents, who are writing out flood insurance policies by the thousands every day.

With the calming of cyclone-churned seas off the coast of Bangladesh, rescuers began searching Sunday for nearly 500 missing fishermen after the weekend storm that killed at least 51 people and left thousands injured, officials said. Many fishermen could have taken shelter after hearing cyclone warnings, but they have yet to return home, the relief ministry officials said in Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital.

Boy Scouts Mark Miles, 12, left, and Justin Billdt, 13, of Yuma, Ariz., help fill sandbags Thursday. Photo by Associated Press

El Nino has caused a severe drought in the islands of the Western Pacific Ocean, threatening more than a million people with famine and creating kindling-dry conditions in Indonesia that have sparked thousands of untamed forest fires. At least 250 people have died on New Guinea from starvation and cholera. A thick smog, brought on by raging forest fires, covers much of neighboring Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei and has raised air pollution to dangerously high levels. A state of emergency declared for parts of Borneo Island was extended Monday because of the haze, which Indonesian officials say threatens the health of up to 20 million people in Southeast Asia.