Floods kill dozens in India; more than 1 million flee

(AP) GAUHATI, India (AP) -- Flash floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 30 people in India's remote northeast over the last three days, officials and news reports said Monday. More than a million people have been forced to flee their homes.

Police in Gangtok said Monday that 21 bodies were recovered after flood waters washed away a highway in Sikkim state that the men were working on. Ten thousand villagers were cut off by the heavy road damage near the town of Chungthan in the mountainous region. At least eight others were feared missing after a landslide hit another part of Sikkim.

The Press Trust of India news agency reported that at least four people have been killed by flooding over the last three days in the neighboring state of Arunachal Pradesh.

The Assam state government said flood waters there have killed at least seven people and forced nearly a million to leave their homes.

Military helicopters have been dropping food supplies and helping rescue stranded villagers in the worst-hit parts of Assam, local officials said. In Tinsukhia district at least 150 people have been rescued by air force helicopters, local administrator Meenakshi Sundaram said.

He said river ferries were unable to reach at least one region because heavy timbers were floating down the Brahmputra river at high speed, making it very dangerous for boats.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Floods kill dozens in India; more than 1 million flee

(AP) GAUHATI, India (AP) -- Flash floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 30 people in India's remote northeast over the last three days, officials and news reports said Monday. More than a million people have been forced to flee their homes.

Police in Gangtok said Monday that 21 bodies were recovered after flood waters washed away a highway in Sikkim state that the men were working on. Ten thousand villagers were cut off by the heavy road damage near the town of Chungthan in the mountainous region. At least eight others were feared missing after a landslide hit another part of Sikkim.

The Press Trust of India news agency reported that at least four people have been killed by flooding over the last three days in the neighboring state of Arunachal Pradesh.

The Assam state government said flood waters there have killed at least seven people and forced nearly a million to leave their homes.

Military helicopters have been dropping food supplies and helping rescue stranded villagers in the worst-hit parts of Assam, local officials said. In Tinsukhia district at least 150 people have been rescued by air force helicopters, local administrator Meenakshi Sundaram said.

He said river ferries were unable to reach at least one region because heavy timbers were floating down the Brahmputra river at high speed, making it very dangerous for boats.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Floods swamp Duluth, Minn.

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) – Residents evacuated their homes and animals escaped from their pens at a zoo as floods fed by a steady torrential downpour struck a city in northeastern Minnesota, officials said Wednesday.

By Clint Austin, AP

Flood waters rush past a home and into a street in Duluth, Minn., on Tuesday after heavy rains hit the area.

By Clint Austin, AP

Flood waters rush past a home and into a street in Duluth, Minn., on Tuesday after heavy rains hit the area.

Police officers helped track down a polar bear that got out of its enclosure overnight at the Lake Superior Zoo in Duluth.

"Even though it's a large white object, it's pretty nerve racking," police spokesman Jim Hansen said of the chase for Berlin, the female polar bear. Zoo officials said she was darted by the zoo's vet and placed in quarantine.

Several sheep, goats and a donkey were killed by the flooding, said Susan Wolniakowski, director of guest services.

"Sadly the zoo experienced the loss of several animals, among them many of the barnyard residents," the zoo said in a statement.

Peter Pruett, the zoo's director of Animal Management, said the "entire staff is devastated."

Wolniakowski said no animals left the zoo grounds and all have been secured.

"I think it's probably been the worst flooding we've ever had at the zoo," Wolniakowski said. A train depot was completely underwater, she said.

Up to 8 inches of rain fell on the area overnight and the soaking continued Wednesday.

Elsewhere in Duluth, Interstate 35 and downtown tunnels were closed and police and the Carlton County Sheriff's Department recommended emergency travel only, warning that numerous sinkholes and washouts were making driving dangerous.

"It's a mess. There are too many intersections to even list that are closed," Hansen said.

Longtime residents say they haven't seen flooding of this magnitude since 1972.

Authorities asked residents of the Fond du Lac neighborhood in Duluth to leave their homes because of concerns about the rising level of the St. Louis River. Hansen said about a dozen homes were evacuated. Police have received about 100 calls for assistance since early Wednesday, he said.

The University of Minnesota Duluth campus closed Wednesday because of the floods.

Contributing: KARE-TV, Minneapolis

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Mozambique: Storms, floods kill 22 (AP)

MAPUTO, Mozambique – Storms have forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and killed 22 in the southern African nation of Mozambique, disaster relief officials said Monday.

State TV on Monday reported that 12 people died Sunday in the central province of Zambezia. Ten deaths in southern areas had been reported earlier in the aftermath of a tropical depression that brought fierce rains and wind last week.

Storms have abated, but Dulce Chilundo, director of the national emergency office, told Radio Mozambique the government is feeding and housing more than 56,000 people whose homes and belongings were swept away.

The governor of Gaza, Raimundo Diomba, said several schools in his southern province were destroyed. Elsewhere, flooding has made stretches of highway impassable.

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Crop insurance rates skyrocket after summer floods (AP)

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, Associated Press Heather Hollingsworth, Associated Press – Wed Dec 14, 7:55 am ET

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Midwestern farmers who saw their land swamped by summer flooding may be socked again with steep increases in their crop insurance premiums, the expensive result of the failure to fix broken levees before the winter snow and next spring's rains.

The Missouri River rose to record levels this year after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began releasing massive amounts of water from reservoirs in Montana, Nebraska and the Dakotas that had been inundated with melting snow and heavy rains. Many levees in downstream states such as Iowa and Missouri were no match for weeks of sustained pressure and gave way. Homes and farms were damaged or ruined.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Risk Management Agency said $114 million in claims have been paid so far for flooding damage on 436,000 acres along the Missouri River downstream from the Gavins Point Dam on the Nebraska-South Dakota border. Record high water levels also created havoc along the lower Mississippi River from Missouri to Louisiana.

In southeast Missouri, the corps used explosives to blow gaping holes in the Birds Point levee to let water out of the Mississippi River and save the tiny town of Cairo, Ill., on the river's eastern bank. The blast sent water cascading over Missouri farms.

The deluge flooded about 130,000 acres behind the levee, including about 8,000 on which Ed Marshall, 55, of Charleston, grows corn, wheat and soybeans. He received $1.5 million in federally-subsidized crop insurance, which covers part of farmers' losses from such things as drought, flooding, hail, wind, insects and plant disease.

Then his premium skyrocketed. He recently paid about $100,000 to insure about 2,700 acres of wheat that he planted in the fall and hopes to harvest in the spring. The amount is nearly five times what he paid a year ago because the U.S. Department of Agriculture now considers his land high risk and he increased his coverage because of the risk.

Marshall, like many farmers, feels like the government has left him high and dry.

"You are going to blow my levee up and then you are going to turn around and take more money from me for insurance because I don't have a levee because you all blew it up," he said. "There is nothing right about that in my opinion."

The higher premium is worth it, given that Marshall expects to earn $1 million from the wheat.

But the rise in insurance costs "is almost adding insult to injury to farmers who lost their crops this year," said Kathy Kunkel, the clerk in Holt County on the opposite side of the state, where the Missouri River flooded more than 120,000 acres and 32 levees were breached. Insurance is a regular cost of doing business, but "this is going to put some people out of business," she added.

Officials with the USDA's Risk Management Agency began warning farmers of potential rate increases over the summer because they didn't want them to be shocked when the 2012 rates were announced last month, said Rebecca Davis, a spokeswoman for the agency.

"We had a lot of public meetings and at those meetings I said, `We have to recognize that this levee is no longer there. And if it doesn't get repaired by the time that the insurance attaches, we have to recognize that it is a higher risk,'" Davis said. "We tried to let them know as early as possible."

It can be two to three times more expensive to insure farmland behind damaged levees than those where repairs have been made. Some farmers, like Marshall, have already paid the higher rates for crops planted this fall. Others will pay unless repairs are made before crops like corn and soybeans are planted in the spring. Along with the Birds Point area, the higher rates could apply in 22 counties in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska and Tennessee.

The corps has estimated it will cost more than $2 billion to repair damage this year's flooding did to levees, dams and riverbanks. With a funding bill stalled in Congress, the corps has been focusing its limited money on fixing levees that protect communities and facilities such as water treatment plants.

"We are not going to have them all fixed," said Jody Farhat, chief of the Missouri River Basin Water Management office. "The (levees) that we are working on because the funding is limited won't be restored to their pre-flood conditions. And there are many that we won't even have money to start the repairs."

Farmers also must restore their soil to pre-flood conditions to get their insurance rates back down. Flooding often cuts massive ruts in the land, washes top soil away and leaves sand from the river bed, which isn't good for farming.

The cleanup is costly. Marshall said he spent $270,000 to clean ditches and clear 200 acres of land. He figures it will cost another $300,000 to fix another 200 acres that were badly damaged.

If the corps can't take care of the levee repairs, it should help farmers pay the higher insurance premiums, Missouri Farm Bureau President Blake Hurst said.

"It's a mess," he said. "These folks have lost their homes. They've lost their grain bins, they've lost their implement sheds, they've lost a year's crop. They have a tremendous amount of damage to the land from both scouring and sand deposits. And now they are looking at an increase in insurance premiums. Something has got to be done."

The levee at Birds Point was 62.5 feet high before the explosion. Generally levees must be restored to their pre-flooding condition, but in the case of Birds Point, farmers won't face big premium increases if the corps gets it back up to 55 feet before spring planting. Marshall said the rebuilding has been going slowly.

"They had a plan to destroy it," he said, "but not a plan to fix."

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Thai floods claim more factories, Bangkok safe for now (Reuters)

By Viparat Jantraprap and Kochakorn Boonlai Viparat Jantraprap And Kochakorn Boonlai – Sun Oct 16, 7:05 am ET

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Floods in Thailand engulfed another industrial estate Sunday but the capital, Bangkok, appears for now to have escaped the devastation seen elsewhere in the country despite heavy monsoon rain and water streaming toward it from the north.

Flooding has killed 297 people since late July and caused $3 billion in damage. A third of the country is under water but officials are confident low-lying Bangkok will be spared after the strengthening of its system of defensive dikes and canals.

"We're dredging canals in both western and eastern zones, which should be completed in no more than a week. The irrigation department has provided an update on the water situation, which has reassured us," Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra told reporters.

Ayutthaya, Pathum Thani and Nakhon Sawan provinces north of Bangkok have been devastated. Floods have swallowed up homes and forced a series of huge industrial parks to close, including the Bang Pa-In estate in Ayutthaya Saturday.

Another estate, Factory Land in Ayutthaya, which has 93 factories employing 8,500 employees, flooded in the early hours of Sunday.

Most of the factories make electronic components and car parts, so this will add to the problems of the international firms that use Thailand as a regional production hub.

"The water broke in at around midnight. Operators there were aware of it and evacuated people from the estate ... Up to now, five industrial estates have been flooded," said Prayoon Tingthong, in charge of industrial affairs for the province.

Japanese car maker Honda Motor Co Ltd has shut its Ayutthaya plant, which accounts for 4.7 percent of its global output, and said Friday it would stay closed until October 21.

The authorities are worried about another industrial park, Nava Nakorn in Pathum Thani province north of Bangkok, which is standing in the way of the flow of water toward the capital.

Thai media said soldiers and workers from the estate, Thailand's oldest with more than 200 factories, were working around the clock to strengthen its walls and divert water.

However, Sunday the Bangkok Post website quoted an irrigation official as saying a crucial sluice-gate had been repaired so the estate was now safe.

HIGH RIVER LEVEL

The north, northeast and center of Thailand have been worst hit by the flooding and Bangkok -- much of it only two meters (6.5 ft) above sea level -- is at risk as water overflows from reservoirs in the north, swelling the Chao Phraya river that winds through the densely populated city.

That danger was compounded at the weekend by high estuary tides that hamper the flow of water into the sea.

The river was reported to be at a record high level of 2.15 meters (seven feet) at one point Saturday but the embankment wall running along it in inner Bangkok is at least 2.5 meters high and has been raised along vulnerable stretches.

"The government's operations are proceeding well ... As for the current water level, it is satisfactory and it's quite certain that water will not flood Bangkok," said Police General Pongsapat Pongcharoen, a spokesman at a government crisis center set up at the city's old Don Muang airport.

Even so, Bangkokians have stocked up on bottled water, instant noodles, rice and canned goods. Many have parked their cars in elevated garages and piled sandbags in front of shop-houses and homes.

The economy is bound to suffer from the flooding.

Both the central bank and government have put the cost at about 100 billion baht ($3.2 billion) already, more than 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

The Finance Ministry has cut its GDP growth forecast for this year to 3.7 percent from 4.0 percent.

The central bank said Friday that 104 bank branches had closed because of flooding, mainly in the central region. Deputy Prime Minister Kittirat Na Ranong has called bankers to a meeting at the Don Muang crisis center Monday.

A committee of government, union and employer representatives is due to decide Monday on a government plan for a big increase in the minimum wage but Thai media said employers appealed Sunday for the decision to be put off for six months because of the damage caused by the floods.

(Additional reporting by Jutarat Skulpichetrat and Pracha Hariraksapitak; Writing by Alan Raybould; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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Algeria floods kill 10; homes damaged (AP)

ALGIERS, Algeria – Authorities in Algeria say torrential downpours have killed at least 10 people and ruined hundreds of homes. A mother and her infant daughter are also missing.

The country's meteorological service had warned about strong thunderstorms across the country from Saturday into Sunday.

The civil protection authority said in a statement that on Sunday it recovered eight bodies from one town, El Bayadh, 435 miles (700 kilometers) southwest of the capital. Rescuers are still looking for a woman and her 9-month-old baby there.

Two other bodies were found in towns to the north of El Bayadh. Hundreds of families were affected when the waters either tore down or inundated their homes.

Algeria often sees heavy rain and flooding in October.

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Tropical Storm Lee Stalls and Floods Athens, Pa. (ContributorNetwork)

FIRST PERSON | When Tropical Storm Lee decided to hang out over the southern tier of New York and Pennsylvania on Sept. 3, no one could have guessed what horrors lay ahead for Athens, Pa.

After a few days of steady rains, Wednesday became the catalyst for a tragedy. Athens received 3 inches of rainfall, which sent swollen creeks pouring into the rivers. The Susquehanna River began to rise half a foot an hour.

At 6:30 p.m., members of the Athens Borough firemen began to go door to door alerting residents to prepare to move fast. It was voluntary to leave at first. I grew up in this area and when Hurricane Agnes rolled through this area in June 1972. I saw the devastation with my own eyes. I was not sticking around.

I spent a few hours with my son Timmy, who is 19, and we put lots of things at least 3 feet off the floor. I prayed that 3 feet would be enough. When Jay, my boyfriend, came with the truck, we were ready to get out of town.

We left our home in Athens at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday and prayed that we would have a home to return to. We went to the home of Thomas and Diana McBride (my sister) on Laurel Hill, far away from the rivers. I thought my daughter and her husband were following us out, but they did not.

By 3 a.m. Thursday, they were evacuating the entire town while sand-bagging efforts on the banks of the Susquehanna failed. At nearly 5 a.m., my son sent a text message that simply said "I have Amber." Those were the longest two hours of my life. With my two older children safe and sound, I fell back to sleep.

By 6 a.m., most of the downtown area was under water up to the first floor. The rain was still falling as it had for a few days and it continued to fall until early afternoon. We watched the television with my niece Karmie and her son. We saw the horror unfolding in our town and many towns south of us as the raging river rolled south. A home flowing down the river, a soaked woodchuck clinging to a fence and two doe in the middle of the river are images I will never forget.

The water in town never crossed the railroad tracks where I live, my home is safe with no damage. Three blocks down homes are in ruins.

I am very thankful my home was spared because like many people in my town, I do not have flood insurance. Once we learned the dam upriver had held up, I came back to my home. My daughter and my grandkids were here waiting for me, fresh from a shelter. Amber, her husband Tim and the three kids are with us until power is on in downtown Athens. Their townhouse had some water, but they cannot go back until the power is on. They may be here a few weeks.

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Floods kill 136 in Pakistan (AP)

KARACHI, Pakistan – A Pakistani relief official says monsoon rains have killed 136 people in the south of the country and flooded hundreds of thousand of rice, cotton and sugarcane crops.

Sajjad Hayder Shah said Monday 90 of the victims had been killed over the last week, many when their houses collapsed.

Last year, southern Pakistan was hardest hit by massive floods that swamped much of the country, killing 2,000 people.

Shah says Pakistani soldiers were helping distribute food and other emergency supplies to hardest hit areas.

The rains began in early August 12 and have affected some 170,000 acres of agricultural land.

Monsoon season in Pakistan usually lasts untill the middle of September, after which winter begins.

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At least 10 die, 1,800 displaced in Nigeria floods (AP)

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria – Nigerian emergency authorities say at least 10 people have died in building collapses caused by heavy rains in the country's north.

A regional coordinator for the National Emergency Management Agency said Monday that the victims include a mother and her three-year-old child. Their house caved in during Sunday's six-hour-long rains in Kari, a town that sits along a stream in Bauchi state.

Aliyu Sambo said Kari Primary School had been converted into a camp to provide relief to about 1,800 people who had been displaced by the floods. He said about 150 mud houses and hundreds of livestock were washed away.

A fire service official also said Monday another house collapse in Kano killed six people. That brings the known death toll to 10.

Nigeria's rainy season lasts roughly from June to September.

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Red Cross: 29,000 have lost homes in NKorea floods (AP)

GENEVA – The Red Cross says over 29,000 people in North Korea have lost their homes from storms and flooding in the past three months.

The International Federation of the Red Cross says it is working to provide emergency food supplies, water and shelter to 7,500 families in the south and southwest of the country.

The humanitarian aid group says in some areas half of homes have been destroyed by floods.

The Red Cross said Monday the worst-hit area in South Hwanghae Province is considered the 'bread basket' of North Korea.

The IFRC's head of delegation in North Korea, Igor Dmitryuk, says the group is trying to find proper shelter for the homeless before the start of North Korea's harsh winter season.

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Flash floods in North Carolina damage homes, leave two dead (Reuters)

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) – Flash floods in Charlotte, North Carolina, damaged nearly 100 homes and left two people dead in apparent drownings, officials said on Sunday.

The American Red Cross said volunteers staffed a shelter for two nights for residents forced from their homes by several hours of heavy rains and flash floods on Friday.

Relief officials, who determined that nearly 100 homes had been affected, also provided assistance for food, clothing and other emergency needs, according to a Red Cross statement.

Firefighters rescued dozens of people from flooded vehicles and homes and responded to more than 80 weather-related calls, Charlotte Fire Department Captain Rob Brisley said on Sunday.

Firefighters also recovered the bodies of a 43-year-old mother and her 16-year-old daughter, who appeared to have drowned in a swollen creek in east Charlotte.

According to police, the woman and teenager fled into the creek's swift-moving waters following a reported larceny at a Burlington Coat Factory.

A store employee who chased them managed to get out of the creek. Authorities found the mother's body on Friday and located the daughter's body on Saturday, police and fire officials said.

(Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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Red Cross: Floods hit North Korean province hard (AP)

SEOUL, South Korea – More than 4,700 homes in one North Korean province were destroyed or damaged by extensive flooding spawned by torrential rains in late July, according to a Red Cross report.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies also said that more than 28,000 people were affected by the July 25-27 rains in South Hwanghae province in the impoverished country's southwest.

The report on the province released this week gave no independent estimate of how many people died, but cited a North Korean government death toll of 26. The Red Cross said 96 people were injured.

Heavy rain can be catastrophic for North Korea due to poor drainage, deforestation and dilapidated infrastructure. Floods in 2007 left some 600 people dead or missing and about 100,000 others homeless.

Particularly heavy rainfall pounded the Korean peninsula in late July. Flooding and landslides caused dozens of deaths in South Korea as well.

North Korea's state news agency reported Friday that the heavy rains caused flooding that killed about 30 people and left almost 16,000 homeless. The Korean Central News Agency did not provide a breakdown by region, but described South Hwanghae as the "largest victim."

North Korea, which perennially suffers food shortages, has said that harvests will likely be hurt this year because of extensive damage to farmland.

A total of 4,753 homes were either destroyed or damaged in South Hwanghae, according to the Red Cross report. Of that total, 2,901 were demolished.

The Red Cross said "food, clean water, shelter, basic supplies and reconstruction of dwellings" were urgently needed and that it and North Korea's Red Cross have sent assistance to the area.

KCNA reported Thursday that leader Kim Jong Il sent a reply to Chinese President Hu Jintao expressing thanks for having sent a message of sympathy over the flooding. China, which has offered flood relief to North Korea, is the country's closest ally.

South Korea has also offered aid, but North Korea has yet to respond.

North Korean weather forecasters are predicting more heavy rain Monday and Tuesday in parts of the country due to a typhoon heading for neighboring China.

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Nigeria: At least 29 dead in rainy season floods (AP)

LAGOS, Nigeria – Nigerian emergency authorities say at least 29 people have died in weekend floods in two cities of Africa's most populous nation.

A spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency said Tuesday that at least 20 people died in the commercial capital of Lagos during unusually heavy rains Sunday.

Yushau Shuaib said nine more people died in the city of Katsina, which saw heavy rains Friday evening.

He said the floods displaced more than 100 people in Katsina. Lagos shut down its public schools Monday.

The agency has warned that rains will be heavier this year than last year. Last year's rains displaced about 500,000 people nationwide.

The rainy season lasts from June to September. Poor drainage systems aggravate its impact.

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Floods damage homes, disrupt traffic in Denmark (AP)

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Authorities say heavy rains have flooded hundreds of homes and several streets in Denmark's capital, disrupting traffic and delaying trains.

Jeppe Ilkjaer, a spokesman for the rescue services company Falck, says his organization has received calls from more than 1,000 home owners in Copenhagen whose cellars have been flooded following the rains late Saturday.

The Danish Road Directorate says the floods have forced it to close four major freeways surrounding the city Sunday and have delayed trains in the region.

No one has been injured by the floods, which also have disrupted telephone lines to Copenhagen police.

Rescue Services said 150 millimeters (6 inches) of rain fell over the Copenhagen area on Saturday and more heavy showers are expected Sunday evening.

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Tornadoes, floods deliver blow to state budgets (AP)

By DAVID A. LIEB, Associated Press David A. Lieb, Associated Press – Sat Jun 25, 4:03 pm ET

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The tornadoes and floods that pummeled much of the South and Midwest also have dealt a serious blow to struggling state budgets, potentially forcing new cuts to education and other services to offset hundreds of millions of dollars in disaster aid.

Most state budgets were still reeling from the economy when a huge outbreak of tornadoes marched across the South in late April, followed in May by more twisters and flooding that extended into the Midwest.

"The disaster could not have come at much worse of a time from a budget standpoint," said David Perry, Alabama's finance director. The budget lawmakers adopted included "relatively steep cuts for many state agencies, and the tornado outbreak only adds to our budget pressure going forward."

The first of the cuts have already hit home in Missouri, where students will be saddled with greater college costs, and grants for domestic violence shelters have been trimmed, among other things.

Missouri and Alabama — where about 400 people were killed by twisters this year — could be forced to make a total of about $150 million in cuts because of the violent weather.

Georgia has tapped an emergency fund. Tennessee is relying on its reserves, too. And storm costs in Oklahoma will only add to the state's multimillion-dollar disaster debt accumulated over several years of natural disasters.

After a major catastrophe, the federal government often shells out billions of dollars to clean up debris, rebuild roads and buildings and help families left homeless get back on their feet. For most disaster costs, the federal government pays 75 percent, leaving state and local governments to cover the rest.

Yet when disaster costs climb to nine or 10 digits, the state's comparatively small share can still present a staggering bill.

In Missouri, lawmakers passed a $23 billion annual budget about the same time that the Army Corps of Engineers blew up a levee to ease flooding pressure along the Mississippi River. The resulting deluge affected an estimated 130,000 acres of fertile farmland and rural homes. A couple of weeks later, the nation's deadliest tornado in decades tore through Joplin, killing 156 people and destroying about 8,000 homes and businesses.

Missouri's budget had set aside $1 million for disaster aid, but Gov. Jay Nixon quickly pledged $50 million for the Joplin tornado and southeast Missouri flooding, offsetting that with cuts to other government programs. The biggest chunk came from higher education, which already was slated for a 5.5 percent cut in the coming school year.

Nixon deepened that cut to 7 or 8 percent, depending on the institution, and also reduced the amount of money lawmakers had budgeted for scholarships.

For the University of Missouri's four-campus system, that means its state aid for the 2011-2012 school year will be 11 percent lower than in 2001, despite an enrollment increase of 39 percent during the past decade.

Eric Woods, student president of the Columbia campus, acknowledged the need for disaster assistance, but bemoaned that students now have to shoulder the burden for Missouri's "crummy luck" with disasters.

"I think when you're making a state chose between rebuilding after several natural disasters or funding their schools, there's something not quite right about it," said Woods, a senior majoring in political science, history and religious studies.

Among other things, Nixon also trimmed the budget for domestic violence grants by 15 percent, essentially continuing a cut from the previous year. That comes as the number of abused women and children seeking shelter the Lafayette House in Joplin has more than doubled since the May 22 tornado, said Louise Secker, the organizations' director of community services.

Missouri and Alabama hope the federal government will agree to cover a greater-than-usual share of the cost for rebuilding public facilities and removing debris. But that may not be enough to avoid painful budget decisions in Alabama, which has about $20 million available for disaster aid in the next fiscal year but expects this year's tornadoes to cost the state $80 million to $120 million over the next several years, Perry said.

"Obviously, we'll have to either cut other areas to come up with enough money to pay for the state's share, or we'll have to come up with some new revenue sources," Perry said.

The situation is other states is less dire, but still troublesome.

When lawmakers return to the Georgia Capitol next year, they will need to find an additional $5.9 million to cover the state's remaining share of disaster costs from tornadoes. Georgia's governor already has tapped $2.6 million from an emergency fund.

Tennessee, which has been trying to rebuild its reserves, plans to dip into them to cover part of the $71 million budgeted for tornado and flooding aid, said Lola Potter, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Finance and Administration.

Some Southern states, including Louisiana and Mississippi, created special disaster-reserve funds after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Those accounts have helped ease the strain of paying for this year's storm damage.

Even for a state with a budget surplus — North Dakota — disaster relief spending has been high. After several floods this year including the Souris River in Minot, which forced thousands of residents to evacuate their homes, state flood-fighting expenses are expected to exhaust a $23.5 million disaster relief fund that was supposed to last until June 2013.

Because rebuilding can take years, disaster bills often go unpaid for long periods in some states. For the second straight year, budget problems led Kansas to delay a couple of million dollars' worth of payments to electric cooperatives for storm damage.

In Oklahoma, where the federal government has declared more than two dozen emergencies or disasters since 2007, the state has a $30 million backlog of unpaid reimbursements to cities, counties and rural electric utilities. At the same time, its emergency fund has just $1.6 million, and no new money was appropriated this year.

Because of a spate of blizzards, floods, twisters and other storms, Oklahoma will likely incur an additional $5 million in disaster debt, said Albert Ashwood, director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.

"We're probably further behind, but keep in mind where we compare to other states in terms of disasters," Ashwood said. "When you start getting four, five or six disasters every year, it's easier to use it up."

___

Associated Press writers Shannon McCaffrey in Atlanta; Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Miss.; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City; Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, La.; Dale Wetzel in Bismarck, N.D., and Lucas Johnson in Nashville, Tenn., contributed to this report.

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Floods to north, but drought spreads in South (Reuters)

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) – Sweltering summer heat and a persistent lack of rain have deepened an historic drought gripping Texas and surrounding southern states.

And despite heavy rains and flooding to the north, there is little relief in sight for the South, according to a report issued Thursday by U.S. climatologists.

The "Drought Monitor" report released Thursday from a consortium of national climate experts said that over the last week, the worst level of drought, called "exceptional drought," expanded to cover more than 70 percent of Texas.

And 91 percent of the Lone Star State suffers from either exceptional drought or the second-worst category, "extreme" drought.

"We've had extraordinarily high temperatures and really high wind. It is still bad," said Don Conlee, acting state climatologist for Texas.

Arizona likewise has more than 70 percent of its land in extreme and exceptional drought, up from 68 percent. Louisiana saw exceptional drought spread to 65 percent from 28 percent in the week, while Oklahoma saw it spread to a third of its land from a tenth.

Drought has ravaged the region, sparking thousands of wildfires, drying up grazing land for cattle, and ruining thousands of acres of wheat and other crops.

Texas experienced its driest spring on record with only a fraction of the rainfall typically seen.

Overall, this is third-worst drought in Texas history up to this point of the year, Conlee said.

There was light precipitation over central and eastern Texas on Wednesday, which gave firefighters some relief in battling a devastating wildfire there that has displaced 1,800 people and destroyed dozens of homes. One fire that erupted Sunday outside Houston has scorched more than 5,200 acres.

But western Texas and Arizona remain dry, and above-normal temperatures in the forecast for the region only add to the misery.

Drought in the South sees its opposite extreme in the North, severe flooding.

This week floodwaters forced the evacuation of thousands of residents in North Dakota as heavy rains swelled waterways from Montana through Missouri.

And more rain is expected over the next several days through the Missouri River basin, according to forecasters.

(Editing by John Picinich)

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Heavy rain floods part of east Australia; 2K flee (AP)

SYDNEY – Heavy rain has caused flooding in eastern Australia that has forced 2,000 people to leave their homes and isolated thousands of other residents.

Michael Gallacher, the emergency services minister for New South Wales, declared some northern parts of the state disaster areas Wednesday. Heavy rain has fallen for three days and more was expected overnight.

Greg Gill of New South Wales emergency services described flooded areas as "just a sea of water" and said 10,000 people were isolated. Many roads are impassable, and swollen rivers are still rising.

Police reported one death, a driver killed when a tree fell and struck his car Wednesday morning.

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Floods, lightning kill 8 as heavy rains hit China (AP)

BEIJING – Floods and lightning killed at least eight people as heavy rains pounded southern China, destroying homes and blocking roads, official media said Saturday.

Flooding from this month's seasonal rains has already forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and left more than 170 dead or missing.

Two people died in the southern province of Guizhou after being struck by lightning, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Two others died after being washed away by floods Friday evening. Xinhua said four other people died but did not provide details.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs said Friday that flooding and rains have killed 25 people, left 25 missing and forced about 671,200 from their homes since Monday.

Xinhua did not say whether the most recent fatalities were included in the 25.

The torrential rains are forecast to continue through the weekend.

Landslides crushed parts of a railway line in southwestern China on Thursday evening, stranding 5,000 passengers on four trains, railway officials said.

About 1,200 workers are continuing to clear tracks and make repairs along the Chengdu-Kunming railway line, which links the capitals of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, Xinhua said.

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China floods death toll hits 94, with 78 missing (AP)

BEIJING – China's flood control office says the death toll from heavy rains lashing central and southern China has risen to at least 94, with 78 people missing.

The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said on its website Sunday that torrential rains over the last week had triggered floods and landslides in 13 provinces, impacting 8.48 million people and destroying 1.15 million acres (465,000 hectares) of crops,

Water Resources Minister Chen Lei was quoted as saying the scope and intensity of the rains had caused grave casualties and damage to property.

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