Hundreds of earthquakes have hit Yellowstone National Park, raising fears of a more powerful volcanic eruption.
The earthquake swarm, the biggest in more than 20 years, is being closely monitored by scientists and emergency authorities.
The series of small quakes included three last Friday which measured stronger than magnitude 3.0. The strongest since this latest swarm of quakes began on December 27 was 3.9.
No damage has yet been reported but scientists say this level of activity - there have been more than 500 tremors in the last week - is highly unusual.
EIGHTY thousand homes were without electricity this morning and two people have died after bad weather hit across France.
Heavy snowfall continues to affect the Massif Central and severe downpours have hit the south east.
Four departments will remain under orange alert by Météo France until 16.00 today - the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, the Hautes-Alpes, the Alpes-Maritimes and the Savoie, with warnings of snow, black ice and avalanches.
The alert has however been lifted for the Auvergne region and the departments of the Ardèche, the Loire, the Lozère and the Var.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Falling temperatures were expected to send more people to shelters in the ice-coated Northeast on Saturday as an army of utility crews made only limited progress restoring power to more than 1 million homes and businesses.
“If you don’t have power, assume that you will not get it restored today, and right now make arrangements to stay someplace warm tonight,” Gov. John Lynch of hardest-hit New Hampshire warned.
Utilities in his state said it likely will be Thursday or Friday — a week after the storm — before all power is restored in the region, partly because of the sheer number of outages and partly because of the devastation.
Chinese authorities have revealed for the first time that around 19,000 children were killed in the earthquake in Sichuan province in May .
They say many died as a result of school building collapses.
The figure is much higher than previous unofficial estimates.
In total, the 7.9 magnitude quake killed more than 80,000 people.
French search divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the Airbus plane that crashed in the Mediterranean killing all seven people on board.
The black box was to be dried out in Paris before data was retrieved, said Air New Zealand’s Ed Sims.
Four of the airline’s staff, one aviation official and two German pilots were on the plane. Only two bodies have been found off the Perpignan coast.
A subway collapse in eastern China over the weekend killed at least four people and left 17 others missing, state-run media reported Monday.
BEIJING, China (CNN) — A subway collapse in eastern China over the weekend killed at least four people and left 17 others missing, state-run media reported Monday.
The search continues for the missing, who are believed to be trapped in the construction site in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, Xinhua news agency reported.
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters were racing early Friday to push back a wind-whipped wildfire that destroyed about 80 homes and a college dormitory, injured four people and forced thousands to flee the longtime celebrity hideaway of Montecito.
The fire broke out just before 6 p.m. Thursday and spread to about 2,000 acres — more than 3 square miles — within hours, destroying dozens of luxury homes and parts of a college campus in the foothills of Montecito, just southeast of Santa Barbara. About 5,400 of the tony community’s 14,000 residents were evacuated and more could be forced to flee if the fire spreads, said Terri Nisich, a spokeswoman with the Santa Barbara County Executive Office.
Residents of Galveston Island, Texas, were returning to their homes Wednesday, almost three weeks after Hurricane Ike devastated Texas’ Gulf Coast.
But living conditions will remain rough, city officials stressed at an afternoon news conference. Most residents will not have electricity for another month, City Manager Steve LeBlanc said.
“People need to assess their own personal situation,” he said. “If they can tolerate these conditions, then they’ll stay.”
The return started early, with the only major highway leading onto Galveston Island backed up with cars in the predawn hours. Headlights stretched for miles.
HONG KONG, China (CNN) — The fallout from a tainted milk scandal in China continues to spread around the globe, with tainted crackers found in South Korea, two more illnesses reported in Hong Kong and a grocery chain in Great Britain pulling Chinese products.
The United States, meanwhile, said inspectors would expand testing for Chinese products that may contain high levels of milk or milk proteins.
Nearly 53,000 children in China have been sickened by infant formula or other products contaminated with the chemical melamine. Four babies have died. About a dozen countries, from Asia to Africa, have banned or recalled Chinese milk products.
