Another Records?

BBC News 21 June 2011 Last updated at 00:24 GMT Help Torrential rain continues to affect millions of people in south eastern China.
According to China Securities Journal, in the four provinces of Zhejiang, Guangdong, Anhui, and Jiangxi, damage is estimated to top $2bn.
The rains are reducing vegetable production and that, says Stephen Joske from the Economist Intelligence Unit, is having an inflationary effect.



Dry spring in south-east England is 'exceptional'

31 May 2011 Last updated at 18:01 GMT Help This spring looks set to be one of the hottest and driest in England and Wales since records began.
But rainfall figures for May are expected to show a divide between north-west England and Scotland, which received higher than average rainfall, and the south and east of England.
Farmer Andrew Barr showed the BBC's Jeremy Cooke how the dry weather was affecting his crops and livestock on his farm in Lenham, Kent.
He said he was concerned that the widespread problems could lead to "less food being produced and that could lead to a rise in food prices



Death toll from Missouri tornado rises to 123
JOPLIN, Missouri, May 24 – The death toll from a tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri on Sunday has climbed to 123, with 750 people injured and many more missing, the authorities said on Tuesday.
Rescue and recovery teams scoured the wreckage of the small Midwestern city, which was devastated by a high-velocity whirl of wind that destroyed about 2,000 buildings.

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Guardian Weekly, Tuesday 10 May 2011 14.08 BST
Rescuers at the site of a landslide that buried five houses in the Santo Domingo neighborhood of Medellin on 27 April 2011. It followed heavy rain. Photograph: Luis Eduardo Noriega/EPA
It has never rained so much in Colombia. "Over the past 10 months we have registered five or six times more rainfall than usual," says weather specialist Ricardo Lozano. Torrential rain and flooding have affected more than three-quarters of the country. The most recent Red Cross bulletin reports 425 fatalities and 3 million disaster victims.
With 12,000 homes destroyed and 356,000 damaged, thousands of people have had to move out, taking refuge in temporary shelters. More than 1m hectares of land are underwater. "But the disaster prevention system worked," Lozano adds, saving between 5,000 and 10,000 lives.


By Richard Fausset and Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 10, 2011, 5:40 a.m.
Reporting from Atlanta and Los Angeles— Memphis braced as the rain-swollen Mississippi River reached its highest level in more than 70 years early Tuesday, marking what officials hope will be a turning point in the fight against a slow-motion disaster that has flooded low-lying homes and farmland and sent hundreds of residents to emergency shelters.