flood

In an agonizing trade-off, Army engineers said they will open a key spillway along the bulging Mississippi River as early as Saturday and inundate thousands of homes and farms in parts of Louisiana's Cajun country to avert a potentially bigger disaster in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. About 25,000 people and 11,000 structures could be in harm's way when the gates on the Morganza spillway are unlocked for the first time in 38 years.

The National Weather Service in Buffalo has issued a flood watch for portions of Western and Central New York, including Genesee, Orleans and Wyoming counties.

BENEATH this bridge, submerged in the muddy water, could lie the most heartbreaking story of the Queensland floods. What was once a railway overpass crossed daily by freight trains is now, resigned rescuers fear, a marker for a mass underwater grave.

Flood waters swept through vast areas of northeastern Australia Saturday, threatening to inundate thousands more homes in a disaster one official said was of "biblical proportions".

The United Nations said Monday that massive floods in Pakistan had affected 13.8 million people and eclipsed the scale of the devastating 2004 tsunami, as anger mounted among survivors.