Natural Disasters News

A RED Cross official has sharply criticised 'complacency' towards the impact of communicable diseases on poor countries, contrasting it with responses to flu or heart disease in rich nations.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says the world body may need over $1 billion to fight the swine flu pandemic for the rest of this year.

Oregon Department of Transportation officials say all lanes on Interstate Five in Medford are now open.

Nearly 1,000 protesters from a Muslim ethnic group rioted in China's far west, overturning barricades, attacking bystanders and clashing with police in violence that killed an unknown number of people, including a policeman, state media and witnesses said.

Firefighters are battling a wildfire spreading across 40 acres in the Angeles National Forest, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department and Forest Service.

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A free swine flu vaccination is to be offered to the general population in the coming months, as part of a major plan to avoid the worst affects of a global pandemic.

Indian paramilitary rescue teams rushed on Saturday to an island in one of Asia's largest rivers, where nearly 100,000 people took refuge after heavy monsoon rains flooded their homes, said a local administrator.

A downed power line at the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo appears to have ignited a nine-alarm grass fire that burned for more than six hours Friday night and this morning, a Vallejo assistant fire chief said.

More rain is forecast over the rest of the weekend. Torrential rain battering southern China has forced more than 150,000 people from their homes, toppled hundreds of houses and punched a dangerous hole in the spillway of a dam, Xinhua news agency reported.

The World Health Organisation still expects the swine flu pandemic to subside in the northern hemisphere over the summer, despite its persistence in the likes of the United States and Britain.

REDSTONE, Colorado - Highway 133 south of Carbondale was reopened late Friday evening, after a series of mudslides temporarily closed a 13-mile stretch between Carbondale and Redstone earlier in the day.

Gordon Brown will receive advice about what to do in the event of an earthquake during the G8 summit in Italy next week.

Creating a new coal plant in Kent could lead to 100,000 more people in the developing world losing their water supply during dry seasons, it has been claimed.

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. Lt. Col. Luke Thompson sometimes skims his C-130 cargo plane just 150 above the ground, battling smoke, shifting winds and rugged terrain on his way to blast thousands of gallons of gooey pink fire retardant onto the front lines of a wildfire."It's kind of like pushing an elephant around on ice," he said.The Air Force ...

As swine flu runs rampant in the Southern Hemisphere winter, world health experts are concerned that some hard-hit countries have been reluctant to take forceful measures to protect public health.

A magnitude 6.0 earthquake has struck the Gulf of California, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Firefighters are battling a fire that has burned about 100 acres of dense brush near Temecula and forced nearby businesses to evacuate.

Tomato plants have been removed from stores in half a dozen states as a destructive and infectious plant disease makes its earliest and most widespread appearance ever in the eastern United States.

The Ohio Department of Health confirmed Thursday that a Butler County male in his 40s, who was infected with H1N1 influenza, died June 29.