• Over 500,000 evacuated as Chinese river reaches highest level since 1955

    Carlos Barria / Reuters

    A man paddles a boat carrying local residents through a flooded area in Banshan Cun, Zhejiang province June 17, 2011.

    Carlos Barria / Reuters

    A man fishes next to a broken levee where grape and strawberry fields were flooded in Banshan Cun, Zhejiang province on June 17. Pelting rain in parts of central and southern China has forced hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes and prompted the government to demand safety checks on vulnerable dams, news reports said on Thursday.

    AFP - Getty Images

    A young boy watches the flood waters from the roof of his home in Laibin, southwest China's Guangxi province on June 16. China was pounded by more summer rain forcing the evacuation of more than 550,000 people, state media reported, warning of further downpours, while the number of people confirmed killed in more than a week of floods and landslides triggered by the torrential rains had leapt past 100.

    AFP - Getty Images

    A man tries to salvage some belongings from his damaged home as flood water hit Laibin, southwest China's Guangxi province on June 16. China was pounded by more summer rain forcing the evacuation of more than 550,000 people, state media reported, warning of further downpours, while the number of people confirmed killed in more than a week of floods and landslides triggered by the torrential rains had leapt past 100.

    From AP:
    A flooded river in eastern China is at its highest level in more than 50 years, the government said Friday as thousands of passenger were stranded after landslides buried parts of a railway line in the southwest.

    Flooding in China over the past two weeks has left more than 170 people dead or missing and led to thousands of people leaving their homes in regions along the Yangtze River. 

    Rain-triggered landslides crushed parts of a railway line in southwestern China, stranding 5,000 passengers on four trains overnight and affecting train service, local railway authorities said Friday.

    Over 2,000 rescuers with 10 excavators rushed to clear the Chengdu-Kunming railway, which links the provincial capitals of Sichuan and Yunnan, the Chengdu Railway Bureau said in a statement, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

    The bureau has sent food and water to the trapped passengers, and buses to evacuate them, the statement said.

    In eastern Zhejiang, the province's main river is at its highest level since 1955, China's flood control agency said. The Qiantang River was 7.9 feet (2.4 meters) above safety levels, it said.

    Elsewhere in the coastal province, a dike breached and flooded 18 villages while landslides toppled about 2,500 houses and flooded 350 roads, Xinhua said. This week's rains have also forced 120,000 residents in Zhejiang to leave their homes.

    For the latest on the story click here.

  • As La. floodwaters rise, crews save osprey chicks

    Janet McConaughey of AP reports from Cow Island Lake, La.: Cindy Ransonet stood tiptoed atop the small boat's cabin and pulled an osprey chick from the nest of a bald cypress tree.

    Janet McConnaughey / AP

    Tour guide Kim Voorhies of Lafayette, La., giving a day to rescuing osprey chicks in nests too close to floodwaters from the Morganza Spillway, hands a chick to licensed bird rehabilitator Cindy Ransonet of New Iberia, La., on March 17, 2011. Cow Island Lake in St. Martin Parish already was about seven feet above its usual level, and Voorhies said alligators had eaten chicks from lower nests. The water was still rising, and Voorhies' father, who got federal approval for the mission, said it would bring the nest into alligator reach at the crest. (AP Photo/Janet McConnaughey)

    As parent ospreys circled overhead and shrieked, the licensed Louisiana wildlife volunteer lifted the chick gently from the messy, four-foot-wide nest of sticks and handed it to the boat's operator. Rehabilitator Donna Gee then banded it and placed the bird in a plastic portable kennel.

    The rising waters unleashed in parts of Louisiana by the opening of the Morganza spillway, to protect New Orleans and Baton Rouge from Mississippi River flooding, has sent people and wildlife searching for higher ground while leaving birds such as the osprey chicks at risk.

    Janet McConnaughey / AP

    Cindy Ransonet hands an osprey chick to the driver of a boat that took Ransonet and another wildlife rescue volunteer to nests in danger from rising floodwaters in the Atchafalaya Basin on March 17. Although the nests were five to seven feet from the waters of Cow Island Lake at the time, the lake was expected to rise another four to seven feet, putting them in easy reach of alligators.

    In recent days, bird rehabilitators have swooped in and rescued osprey chicks and eggs from this lake in the Atchafalaya Basin. A guide who usually shows them to tourists and photographers got federal approval, saying the nests would soon be under water or in reach of alligators.

    The group hopes to return the chicks when the floodwaters recede, part of various efforts to rescue animals injured or threatened by the floods.

    Janet McConnaughey / AP

    An osprey chick too young even to sit up is weighed at the home of wildlife rehabilitator Donna Gee of Youngsville, La., on March 17. Gee and licensed rehabilitator CIndy Ransonet collected 13 chicks and three eggs March 13 and 17 from nests that they considered likely to be overtaken by floodwaters or to come within alligator reach when the nearby Atchafalaya River crests.

    Read the full story and see more images of the floods in our slideshow.

  • Waiting game in Mississippi as river nears crest

    Dave Martin / AP

    Floodwaters from the Yazoo river creep across fields of crops near Yazoo City, Miss., on Thursday. The water is expected to crest on Thursday, May 19. For thousands of people forced from their homes by the rising Mississippi River, life has become a tedious waiting game: waiting for meals at shelters, waiting for the latest word on their flooded homes, waiting for the river to fall.

    Dave Martin / AP

    Homes are surrounded by floodwaters from the Mississippi River in Vicksburg, Miss., on Thursday.

    Related content:

  • Jeff Roberson / AP

    Volunteers work to place sandbags atop a temporary levee to fight back floodwaters as lightning from a thunderstorm is seen in the background on Tuesday, April 26, in Dutchtown, Mo. Powerful storms that swept through the nation's midsection have pushed river levels to dangerous heights and are threatening to flood several towns in Missouri.

    Missouri volunteers build a levee against floods in Dutchtown

    For more images from the severe storms across the U.S. click here.

  • EPA

    Stranded people wait for rescue in front of a portrait of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej on a flooded street in Surat Thani province, southern Thailand on April 3. Floods and mudslides triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 45 people and affected almost a million residents.

    2 million affected by flooding in southern Thailand

    AP reports: BANGKOK — Heavy rains have eased in southern Thailand, where heavy downpours and landslides over nearly two weeks has left 45 people dead.

    The government disaster agency says more than 40,000 people are living in temporary shelters in three provinces that remain flooded.

    The disaster agency said 2 million people in 10 southern provinces have been affected by flooding that started March 23.

  • Russell Watkins / U.K. Department for International Development

    Spiderwebs in trees in Pakistan.

    Russell Watkins / U.K. Department for International Development

    An unexpected side-effect of the flooding in parts of Pakistan has been that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters. Because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water has taken so long to recede, many trees have become cocooned in spiders' webs. People in this part of Sindh have never seen this phenonemon before - but they also report that there are now less mosquitoes than they would expect, given the amount of stagnant, standing water that is around. It is thought that the mosquitoes are getting caught in the spiders' webs, thus lowering the chance of being bitten. This may in turn be reducing the risk of malaria, which would be one blessing for the people of Sindh, facing so many other hardships.

    It's web-tastic – 'spider trees' fight disease

    By Phaedra Singelis, NBC News

    That's a lot of spiders. I wonder if it harms the trees.

    The Department for International Development is helping survivors in Pakistan. More information on the floods and how the UK is helping can be found at http://www.dfid.gov.uk/floodsinpakistan2010.

  • Flood waters wreak havoc in downtown Portland, Ind.

    Rachelle Haughn / AP

    Aerial photo shows parts of downtown Portland, Ind., which were underwater for most of Tuesday, March 1 as the Salamonie River spilled over its banks. Water rose throughout the day drowning city streets and flooding businesses and residences in the downtown following heavy rainfall Sunday and Monday.

    Mike Snyder / AP

    Portland firefighters help a couple from a car stranded in high water in Portland, Ind. on Monday, Feb. 28. Heavy rainfall Sunday night and Monday morning pushed the Salamonie River over its banks and into the downtown area, causing damage to dozens of businesses and homes.

    Chris Bergin / AP

    Mary Newton walks through her shop following flooding in downtown Portland, Ind., Tuesday, March 1. ater came into the town Monday afternoon leaving many businesses with a mess to clean up Tuesday.

    Steve Garbacz / AP

    Members of the Portland, Ind., Fire Department carry an inflatable raft down a flooded Indiana state Route 26, east of Portland, Ind., in response to a call from a motorist stranded in floodwaters from the Salamonie River.

    Read the latest about the flood from here.

  • Dave Hunt / AFP - Getty Images

    Traffic is stopped on a road through a submerged and detroyed banana plantation near the Queensland town of Tully, Australia on February 3, 2011 after Cyclone Yasi passed through the northern part of the state overnight. Australia's biggest cyclone in a century shattered entire towns, pummelling the coast and churning across the country, terrifying locals but remarkably causing no known fatalities. About 75 percent of Australia's banana supply was estimated to have been affected, while damage to sugarcane crops was put at roughly 500 million USD.

    Road to nowhere in Australia following cyclone Yasi

    By Phaedra Singelis, NBC News

    See more photos from the cyclone aftermath. Read the full story.

  • Felipe Dana / AP

    A car, dragged inside a church by a mudslide, is seen in Nova Friburgo, Brazil, Jan. 21, 2011. Brazil will create a nationwide disaster-prevention and early-warning system following recent floods and landslides that killed more than 750 people in mountain towns north of Rio de Janeiro, government officials said Thursday.

    Car inside a church in Brazil, following mudslides

    By Phaedra Singelis, NBC News

    More photos from Brazil.

  • Mauricio Lima / AFP - Getty Images

    Gravediggers carry the coffin of a victim of a landslide at a cemetery in central Nova Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on January 17, 2011. The death toll from devastating floods and landslides in Brazil rose Monday to 640, as the military stepped up efforts to reach isolated communities near Rio.

    Brazil mudslide victim buried in Rio de Janeiro

    By Phaedra Singelis, NBC News

    Full story. More photos from Brazil.

  • Brazil buries victims of mudslides

    Felipe Dana / AP

    A man stands among debris after a landslide in Teresopolis, Brazil, Friday, Jan. 14. A new and ominous rain began falling again Friday in mountain towns where mudslides and flooding killed at least 479 people, hindering rescuers' efforts to reach survivors even as relatives hauled the dead down the hills to freshly dug graves.

    Felipe Dana / AP

    Men lower the casket of Mauro Viana, 9, who died in a landslide in Teresopolis, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, Thursday Jan. 13.

    Felipe Dana / AP

    Roberta Machado Correia, who survived a landslide, attends the burial of a friend in Teresopolis, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, Thursday Jan. 13.

    Wilton Junior / Zuma Press

    Teresopolis, RJ, Brazil - Grave of victims of landslides and flooding in Teresopolis, at Carlinda Berlims Cemetery, in the Brazilian southeastern state of Rio de Janeiro, on Jan. 13.

    For more images from this story click here.

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