According to the latest reports the Taiwanese president confirmed that the total number of casualties caused by the flood and mudslides could cross 500. Out of the total 500 people killed, 400 are from a single village. The village of Hsiaolin was hit by a massive mudslide that leveled all but two houses. One can only realized the magnitude of the damage that has happened in Hsiaolin after visiting the place. The village has been converted into a river bed with no structure standing. The entire village has been engulfed by a mud avalanche and is expected to be 20-30 meters deep. It is expected that nearly 400 people are still buried under the mud at the village site. The mud avalanche was so strong that it took with it a 17 meter bridge. The rescue teams reaching the site have a mammoth task ahead for them, they have not got a single clue on where to start digging. Even if they would have reached the site in time, they still would have not been able to do much.

In the last few days thousands of people have been moved to safer shelters by airlift, yesterday alone 2000 people were airlifted to safer locations. Most of the effected areas are in the mountains and the only way to reach them is by helicopters. As the weather is clearing the authorities are speeding up the rescue process. Most of the roads and bridges connecting these locations have been totally destroyed. As many as 34 bridges and 253 sections of road have been destroyed by flooding and it will take a minimum of three years to rebuild them.

Typhoon Morakot caused damages worth US $ 910 million and the reconstruction cost could well exceed US$ 3.65 billion. As the Typhoon passed over the island nation it unleashed more then 200 cm of rain which caused massive flooding and mud avalanches.

The first of the four earthquakes had its epicenter about 343 miles southeast of the border city of Tijuana and measured 5.8 on the Richter scale. The tremors of the quake were felt as far as Phoenix in Arizona State. The earthquake happened at 10:55 am. The next and the most powerful of the four happened at 10:59 am and measured 6.9 on the Richter scale. This was followed by two subsequent earthquakes of 5.0 magnitude on the Richter scale at 11:33 am and 5.9 magnitude on the Richter scale at 11:40 am.

As per the latest reports there has been no damage to property or injuries. Fire department personal are looking for possible building cracks and leakage in gas and water lines. There have been no distress or damage report calls on 911 till now.

Mexico is one of the most seismically active regions on the planet as the North American plate moves against the Cocos Plate. There have been many earthquakes in the past due to the movement of these tectonic plates.

The Black Sea coastal region of Turkey has been facing the ravages of dire weather with Giresun bearing the brunt of this calamitous situation with most parts been heavily inundated. Coincidently, Giresun has been assigned as a catastrophe zone and has been on the receiving end for funding from the Prime Minister’s emergency fund.

The heavy rains that lashed out persisted all through Monday, intensifying during the dusk hours, inflicted mass devastation in cities located in the east Black Sea and some towns being taken unawares post dusk with colossal flooding in many districts. Regions like Giresun, Trabzon, Rize and Ordu have witnessed the most terrible destruction, with traffic interrupted in several places and many residences and business establishments significantly submerged in water. Though there are no cases of fatalities being cited as yet, more than 100 homes are submerged in water. The sporadic rains and landslides are make matters worse for the rescue operations.

Mustafa Demir, the Public Works Minister made a declaration yesterday that corroborated the facts that farming property and the city’s infrastructure has suffered extensive damage. An amount of 6,00,000 TL from the Prime Minister’s emergency fund has been obtained and would be going towards crisis management and emergency shelter for the inhabitants.

A hugely reverberating and destructive blast took place outside the paramilitary Civil Guard barracks located in Burgos, Northern Spain. The car bomb that exploded close to 0230 GMT shattered all glass over a large area, with the nearby structure facing considerable damage and pumping a hole in the ground. The splinters that flew have injured close to forty people, many of whom are civil guard agents and their kin.

The Interior Ministry official has charged ETA, the Basque separatist faction for plotting this heinous act, though they did not receive any prior warning regarding the bomb, quite contrasting to past ETA attacks. ETA in its long lasting battle for Basque independence has been found guilty of taking more than 800 lives. The faction concluded an armistice two years back and is believed to be pressurised by the detention of a large number of their senior holding leaders.

There were no injuries in the past car bomb that took off in Durango town located in Basque on 9th July. While the past month, ETA was accused of initiating a car bomb in Bilbao city that took the life of a police officer.

Space shuttle Endeavour finally gusted into space Wednesday evening, along with its seven-member entourage on Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida after overcoming five major setbacks, slated to reach the International Space Station on Friday. After a month long delay, the launch of Endeavour coincides with the 40th anniversary of the successful launch when man first landed on moon.

Engineers have noted rubble of close to nine foam insulations of the external fuel tank flying off the Endeavour at the time of take off, though the prospect of major damage has been ruled out. A few scrapes have been observed that are being comprehended as insignificant coating being grazed off. A detailed picture of further damage would become clear on Friday when the astronauts would be taking closeup pictures of the space shuttle as it back tosses prior to docking.

The chairman of the mission management team, Mike Moss stated that it would be premature to make any speculations regarding the damage at this point of time. He further mentioned that in the eventuality of minor damage, the crew were well-equipped with repair kits. If matters were worse, the crew had the option to haul into the space station for the 2-3 month period while a rescue shuttle would be there to tend to them.

Columbia, NASA’s prior fatal venture that blasted to pieces in sky while re-entry claimed all seven lives on it.

The seven member crew comprising of six Americans along with a Canadian, Julie Payette who is set to manoeuvre the space shuttle’s robot arm in the mission. For a period of two weeks, the space shuttle will remain docked at the International Space Station, during which the crew will assist in installation of the final component of the Japanese space lab, Kibo, a porch that needs exposure to space for research work. There are five spacewalks scheduled.

There are seven space flights to be undertaken in future prior to the shuttle’s retirement in 2010.

A plane crash has occurred in Iran and does not look to have dropped slowly and from the crater it has made it looks like it dropped straight down. The crash happened 90 miles from Tehran near the Jannat-abad village close to the Iranian city of Qazvin and was on it way to Armenia. It was a short haul flight and the crash sight is disturbing and the damage looks immense.  As per the latest report the plan was a Tupolev-154 and belonged to Caspian Airlines. The Tupolev-154 is an aircraft of Russian origin and was an aging aircraft. Tupolev-154 has a sad history as there have been eight crashes in the last decade.

The plane crashed 16 minutes after take off at 11:33 local time and had 168 people on board and most of the passengers were Armenian citizens. No survivors have been found and all are expected to be dead. The aircraft wreckage is spread over a 200 meters x 200 meters square. There was a large fire at the site after the crash but it has been extinguished by the local fire services. More details will be available once the black box of the aircraft is recovered. The flight number of the Armenian Tupolev-154 was 7908.

Chris Hill, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq must be thanking his lucky stars as his convoy narrowly missed a roadside bomb that went off in the southern province of Baghdad. The embassy convoy was on its way passing through Thiqar province that is 240kms south of Baghdad. The bomb has caused damage to the vehicle but none were harmed. The attack has come just two weeks subsequent to the total withdrawal of the U.S. troops from Iraq.

The American ambassador was visiting the region to get together with U.S, Italian residents and local political leaders in an endeavour to help restore Iraq. The U.S. military speaker, Maj. Myles Caggins said that it was not clear whether the ambassador was the intended target, stating that it was atypical for a Western convoy to be assaulted in that part of Iraq.

A characteristically Shiite Arab stronghold, Thiqar, was among the first province to be passed over to the Iraqi security personnel. It had been the hot bed for episodic violent conflicts in 2007 that concurred between the dedicated mercenaries to Shiite prophet Muqtada al-Sadr that were anti-American and the Iraqi security personnel. The latest car bomb attack in a bustling market of Bathaa during June this year consumed 37 lives and injured 70 others.

A moderate 6.0 magnitude quake on the Richter scale struck the scenic hilly Yunnan province in China at 11:19 GMT on Thursday at a 10 kilometres depth.

The quake has claimed one life with hundreds being injured and razing to the ground 18,000 and above homes in south-west China. Massive evacuation of more than 4,00,000 people was undertaken  by thousands of soldiers and police personnel, with necessary supplies like marquee, blankets amongst other provisions being made available.

More than 75,000 houses have faced severe damage in six districts of Yunnan with nearly 30 people afflicted with grave injuries. In the Yao’an district of Yunnan, close to 328 are injured with one dead.

The epicentre of the quake was on a region that has a rather sparse populace in the east-northeast area of Dali city than spans 98kms. There were eight post-tremors that ensued creating utter chaos amongst the residents who rushed outside to avert any major harm.

The governor of Yunnan, Qin Guangrong has bailed out 2.9 million dollars towards calamity assistance. The assessment of the mass destruction is reported to cause a dent of 2.5 billion yuan to the local economy.

A huge 8.0 scale quake struck Sichuan province last year had claimed the lives of 87,000 people, many of whom went missing.