Heavy rain is continuing to cause havoc across southern and central China, triggering landslides which have left dozens of people dead or missing. The death toll from five landslides, in Yunnan, Sichuan and Hunan provinces, rose to 37, with another 40 people missing, Xinhua news agency said.
 

Elsewhere, villagers were evacuated as reservoirs overflowed and troops blew up a dyke to prevent further flooding. China experiences seasonal rains but they have been severe this year. Meteorologists say more rain is expected in central and southern China, potentially exacerbating flood problems. In worst-hit Xiaohe, in Yunnan province, 13 people were confirmed dead after the side of a mountain collapsed before dawn on Tuesday, burying houses. 32 others were missing, a local government spokesman said. Images from the scene showed overturned cars and toppled houses in a landscape strewn with rocks and mud. Relief supplies were being sent to the area, state media said. 

 Landslides also hit rural communities in Sichuan and Hunan, killing a total of 24 people. Flooding has also affected vast areas. In Jiangxi province, 10,000 people were evacuated from villages in the north after rain triggered flashfloods and caused three reservoirs to overflow. In Anhui province, troops blew up part of a dyke on a swollen branch of the Yangtze to prevent floodwaters flowing into riverside villages. But there was some good news. Officials said troops had finished digging a drainage channel from an overflowing reservoir in Qinghai and the water level was beginning to subside. More than 10,000 people had been evacuated from the area, and there were fears that flooding could knock out power in the nearby city of Golmud. 

Eighteen people were killed and 57 others are missing as Tropical Storm Conson moved over the Philippines, the country’s National Disaster Coordinating Council reported Wednesday. The storm, known locally as "Basyang," had weakened slightly, the council said. As of 4 p.m. Wednesday (4 a.m. ET), its maximum sustained winds were at 53 mph (85 kph) near its center and gusts of up to 62 mph (100 kph). Conson made landfall on the northern Philippine island of Luzon late Tuesday, about 41 miles (66 kilometers) east of the capital, Manila. It was back over the South China Sea, about 112 miles (180 kilometers) west of Iba, as of Wednesday afternoon. Four people died when a warehouse under construction collapsed, the council said. Several people were hit by fallen debris and several others drowned. Twelve people were injured by debris. The missing included 25 fishermen.

Nearly 500 houses were reported damaged. Many were still without power, although it had been restored in some areas. More than 4,000 people were stranded in various ports, along with 26 vessels, the council said. The storm is expected to move into southern China on Friday, but the Joint Typhoon Warning Center is predicting little or no intensification before landfall there. Heavy rain and flooding will be a concern for southern China. The storm became the first typhoon of 2010 on Monday before losing some steam. While some flooding was reported after heavy rains, most roads and bridges were passable, the council said.It would take two to three days to repair at least five major transmission lines after cables and wires were cut on Tuesday night by falling trees, posts and strong winds, said Guillermo Redoblado, spokesman for the national grid corporation.

"The 2-3 days estimate is very conservative because we have not completed our assessment," Redoblado told ANC television, adding about 850 megawatts of capacity would be restored in the next 24-48 hours. "By the end of the day, we can say half of the requirements of Meralco will be provided for." Meralco, the main power distributor in the capital and six nearby provinces, provides electricity to 4.7 million households. Provinces neighbouring the capital were hit harder by Conson, which weakened to a tropical storm after reaching Luzon but sill carried winds of 95 kph (59 mph) and gusts of up to 120 kph. In the central province of Camarines Norte, four people drowned at sea and two were killed by falling trees, and 40 more people were missing, Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo said. Five people were killed and six were missing in Batangas and Cavite provinces, south of Manila, local officials said. Conson was expected to be out of Philippine territorial waters by Thursday and reach southern China in 24-48 hours, the weather bureau said. it was expected to regain strength as it moved over the South China Sea.

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Across Manila and surrounding provinces, the storm felled trees and covered roads in debris and stopped train services. Hundreds of families moved to temporary shelter areas due to flash floods. The Agriculture Department said it was too early to make an assessment of any damage to rice and coconut crops in the provinces that were in Conson’s path. Philippine financial markets opened as normal on Wednesday, showing little reaction to the storm as buildings in the central business district were powered by back-up generators. The stock market rose 1.1 percent to its highest close in 2-½ years, lifted by broad gains in Asian stocks.  President Benigno Aquino III scolded the weather bureau for inaccurate forecasts at a meeting of National Disaster Coordinating Council at the main army base in Manila.
"That information is sorely lacking and we have had this problem for quite a long time," Aquino told the weather bureau.
"You do what you are supposed to do and this is not acceptable. I hope this is the last time that we are brought to areas different from where we should be."
Dozens of domestic and international flights were either suspended or diverted from Manila’s main airport. Schools were closed but some government offices suspended operations as the country began cleaning up the debris left by Conson. Typhoons and tropical storms regularly hit the Philippines, China, Taiwan and Japan in the second half of the year, gathering strength from the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean or South China Sea before normally weakening over land. Last year, Typhoon Ketsana, known in the Philippines as Ondoy, dumped record rain that submerged 80 percent of the capital region and nearby areas, killing 277 people, leaving tens of thousands homeless and causing more than $100 million of damage to crops, infrastructure and property.
 

At least 17 people have been killed and dozens more are missing after a series of landslides in south-west China, state media says. The landslides, which were triggered by days of heavy rain, struck three rural communities in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.

Four people were killed and 42 others were missing after one landslide in Xiaohe in Yunnan’s Zhaotong city. In Sichuan, two separate landslides left 13 people dead and two missing. Meanwhile further to the west in Qinghai province, 10,000 people have been evacuated from the area around an overflowing reservoir. Teams are trying to dig a channel to drain the reservoir, which has been filled far beyond capacity by recent heavy rain. It is the latest in a spate of weather-related incidents to hit China. Although seasonal, the rains are particularly heavy this year and disruption is severe. At least 43 people had died and 18 were missing after heavy rains along the Yangtze River in central and eastern China since 8 July, state media said. In Xiaohe in Yunnan, an official said that the side of a mountain crashed down on houses.

“The township is located in a river valley surrounded by mountains, people were buried in their homes,” the government official, who asked not to be named, told AFP news agency.

The other two landslides struck Yandai village in Garze and Sima village in Luzhou city. Search teams were working at all three sites, Xinhua news agency said, and relief supplies had been sent to Xiaohe. In Qinghai, soldiers were using bulldozers to cut a channel to drain water from the Wenquan reservoir, Xinhua reported. If it bursts, the reservoir could damage the nearby Qinghai-Tibet railway, along with the city of Golmud’s power and water plants, the agency said. Some parts of the city are reportedly already under 2m of water. Xinhua said the soldiers hoped to start draining the reservoir within the day.

A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water. In the sense of “flowing water”, the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Flooding may result from the volume of water within a body of water, such as a river or lake, which overflows or breaks levees, with the result that some of the water escapes its usual boundaries.

While the size of a lake or other body of water will vary with seasonal changes in precipitation and snow melt, it is not a significant flood unless such escapes of water endanger land areas used by man like a village, city or other inhabited area.

Floods can also occur in rivers, when flow exceeds the capacity of the river channel, particularly at bends or meanders. Floods often cause damage to homes and businesses if they are placed in natural flood plains of rivers. While flood damage can be virtually eliminated by moving away from rivers and other bodies of water, since time out of mind, people have lived and worked by the water to seek sustenance and capitalize on the gains of cheap and easy travel and commerce by being near water. That humans continue to inhabit areas threatened by flood damage is evidence that the perceived value of living near the water exceeds the cost of repeated periodic flooding.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Four people have been killed and another injured following a week of heavy rains in Honduras.

The country’s Permanent Emergency Commission says three men died Monday while trying to cross rain-swollen streams or rivers.And one teenage boy was killed and an 11-year-old injured when their house partially collapsed in the capital Tegucigalpa on Monday. Honduras has been hit by heavy rains for about a week.Authorities say three people died in various parts of the country after being hit by lightning last week.

Heavy rains caused flash flooding across the Boston metro area Saturday, stranding cars and causing damage, the National Weather Service reported. No injuries were immediately reported. Flash flood warnings were issued for four counties in eastern Massachusetts, and 2 to 4 inches of rain fell in the region, according to the weather service.

There were several reports of cars getting stuck in floodwaters, particularly in the Somerville area, northwest of Boston, where the weather service said at least five vehicles were stranded underneath the Assembly Square Underpass. Video from CNN affiliates WHDH and WCVB showed the vehicles fully submerged beneath the underpass. Drivers had to be rescued from their cars when the tunnel filled with up to 18 feet of water, according to an off-duty police officer involved with the rescue efforts. The officer told WCVB that the water was heavily mixed with sewage. The flooding also forced the closures of at least two bridges. Witnesses told WHDH that cars were also submerged around the bridges and residents waded through water up to their knees. Some locals said they helped direct traffic since lights were knocked out by the storms. The bad weather also disrupted travel for the Boston area transit system. Joe Pesaturo, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, told CNN affiliate WCVB that there were weather-related delays during the afternoon, including the suspension of rail service in one area due to water on the tracks.