Matthew 24:38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Scores killed in Ethiopia floods

The Dechatu river overflowed, sweeping water through the city
Almost 200 people are reported to have died after a river burst its banks and floodwaters swept through the city of Dire Dawa in eastern Ethiopia.
The local police commissioner said 39 of the dead were young children.

Officials said hundreds of homes were destroyed when the Dechatu river overflowed on Saturday night.

Over the past two years flooding has afflicted large areas of eastern and southern Ethiopia, killing hundreds and displacing hundreds of thousands.

'Washed away'

A heavy downpour hit Dire Dawa city, some 500km east of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, in the early hours of Saturday, residents told news agency AFP.



"My home is situated a bit far from the river, I was in bed when I heard people shouting," said 45-year-old Abaye Baheru.

"I opened the door, and the water burst in, forcing me to escape to the rooftop from where police rescued me, but my house and property were destroyed.

"While on the rooftop, I saw men, women and children being washed away, while crying for help," Mr Abaye said.

The floods also swept away vehicles and livestock, and destroyed markets and shops, witnesses said.

Thousands of Dire Dawa's estimated 250,000 residents have been displaced by the flooding.


The flooding has caused mass destruction

"The death toll from the flood caused by the overflow in Dire Dawa reached 191 by 8.30 pm (1730 GMT)," regional Dire Dawa Police Commissioner Getachew Asres said.

He said 39 of the dead were children aged under seven years.

Flooding often hits low-lying parts of Ethiopia during the June-to-September rainy season.

Last year at least 200 people were killed - some by crocodiles in the floodwaters - when heavy rains pounded the same region.

The flooding also caused millions of dollars worth of damage, particularly to small farmers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5250386.stm

Dozens die in South China storm



Prapiroon strikes
The death toll from Tropical Storm Prapiroon in southern China has risen to at least 55, with 17 people still missing, state media report.
The storm made landfall on Thursday in Guangdong and has also affected the provinces of Hunan, Guangxi and Hainan.

It has forced the evacuation of some 530,000 people and caused an estimated 2.4bn yuan ($300m) worth of damage.

Prapiroon was downgraded from a typhoon on Friday but continues to pound the region with winds and rain.

It has caused transport chaos in recent days, with thousands of passengers stranded at Hong Kong airport.

More than six million people were affected by the typhoon, officials said.

Rescue

The latest fatalities include six migrant farm workers whose shelter was swept away by a flash flood in the city of Laibin in Guangxi province, Xinhua news agency said.

Earlier, Xinhua reported that one person was killed in a landslide in the same province, where hundreds of houses and hundreds of acres of farmland have been destroyed.



Three people died in a landslide in Guangdong, while two more deaths were caused by lightning. Three more were killed when walls or billboards fell down, Xinhua said.

A 25-year-old policeman trying to rescue survivors was killed by a mudslide in Sihui city, Guangdong, the Guangzhou Daily newspaper reported.

State television showed pictures of police and soldiers carrying children through chest-deep, fast flowing water.

At Hong Kong airport, the cancellation of more than 800 flights on Thursday left thousands of passengers stranded.

More flights were delayed on Friday, as were flights from Nanning in Guangxi.

Typhoon Bilis

Ferries between Hainan island, south of Guangdong, and the mainland were suspended before the typhoon arrived, while rail services were also disrupted.

More than 53,000 fishing vessels were recalled to harbour, but 68 people had to be rescued from a barge off the Guangdong coast, Xinhua said.

Eleven million mobile phone text messages were sent warning the public ahead of the typhoon's arrival, Guangdong's provincial government said on its website.

Prapiroon, which means "God of Rain" in Thai, also killed six people in the Philippines.

Southern China has been hit hard by typhoons this season.

More than 600 people died when Typhoon Bilis struck six southern provinces last month. Hunan was worst affected, with hundreds killed in flash floods and landslides.

Bilis was followed by Typhoon Kaemi, which caused further destruction in the area.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5247666.stm

El Paso Recovering From Record Week of Rain, Floods

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,207239,00.html

Half a million homeless in India floods, Mumbai hit
Sun Aug 6, 2006 4:01am ET

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews....ATHER-INDIA.xml

200 Feared Dead In Bridge Collapse

At least 200 people watching raging floods in Mardan, Pakistan, plunged into the water when the bridge holding them was swept away.


http://www.playfuls.com/news_00000002088_2...e_Collapse.html

Hey Tig, what do you think it means? Do you think it's a forewarning as to the fire to come? Because God did promise Noah that he would not flood the earth again....This time it's going to be by fire....

The world is crying for Jesus more then ever.........

I think that the strange weather patterns are speaking prophetically and as a sign. Some areas are experiencing unusual drought patterns while other areas are experiencing floods, earthquakes etc...just thought that this was the time that we need to really pay attention to the weather patterns accross the world as it is significant to the Bible prophecies.

Luke 21:25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; 26 Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. 27 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.


Britain warns of coming coastal flooding


http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read/29042

YEP! I completely agree......

Right out of Amos 4:

6 "I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,
and lack of bread in all your places,
yet you did not return to me,"
declares the LORD.

7 "I also withheld the rain from you
when there were yet three months to the harvest;
I would send rain on one city,
and send no rain on another city;
one field would have rain,
and the field on which it did not rain would wither;

8 so two or three cities would wander to another city
to drink water, and would not be satisfied;
yet you did not return to me,"
declares the LORD.

9 "I struck you with blight and mildew;
your many gardens and your vineyards,
your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured;
yet you did not return to me,"
declares the LORD.

10 "I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt;
I killed your young men with the sword,
and carried away your horses,
and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils;
yet you did not return to me,"
declares the LORD.

11 "I overthrew some of you,
as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning;
yet you did not return to me,"
declares the LORD.

12 "Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel;
because I will do this to you,
prepare to meet your God, O Israel!"


The world should prepare to meet God.

May we all be prepared through Jesus Christ.

In Him,

Mike

Rio Grande swelling, crews on alert

Aug 17, 2006 06:34 AM PDT

http://www.kvia.com/Global/story.asp?S=5290234

El Paso gets disaster status

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metrop...an/4119839.html

North Korea agrees to South Korean aid for devastating floods

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/2...rea-floods.html

Ethiopia saves 6,000 marooned by devastating floods

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/2...r-ethiopia.html

Mud flood threatens Java residents
By Lucy Williamson
BBC News, Sidaorjo



Many villagers ran to escape the encroaching hot mud
Thousands of people on the Indonesian island of Java have been forced from their homes by tonnes of hot mud and gas.

The sludge, which has been spewing out of the ground for more than two months, is the result of a crack in a gas drilling project near Indonesia's second city, Surabaya.

In a sign of growing international concern over the disaster, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited the affected area of Sidoarjo last week.

But despite attempts by government officials and the company involved, so far nothing has managed to contain the flow.

The mud now covers around 20 square kilometres. Climb up a bank of earth at the outskirts of Shiring village and you see it - a lake of mud stretching for kilometre after kilometre.

A white plume of gas marks the spot where it all started; a crack in the earth spewing out steaming sludge.

You can count the rooftops floating in the mud - marking out factories and schools. And you can imagine the things you cannot see - the homes, the rice paddies, the furniture, the toys: whole lives buried; their owners gone, forced to run for higher ground.

'We just ran'

A few kilometres away is what one local person described as a "people market". It is a newly-built market place, not yet filled with shops.


Residents have been living in temporary shelters

Instead, most of the 9,000 people who have been displaced by the mud have ended up here, two families to one shop space. Motorbikes, clothes and plastic buckets mark the entrance to these new homes - a handful of belongings saved from the sludge.

"We were all scared," Suliati said, as she squatted outside one shop entrance, cooking up a dinner of fried eggs.

"The mud came up to our chest, we didn't have time to save anything from the house, we just ran to save our lives."

Behind her, her mother nodded agreement.

"Now we have to help each other just to survive," she said. "Some people borrow things from us, we borrow other things from them. We have food, but we've lost everything else - our homes, our jobs. It's a hard time for us."

Investigation

The gas company running the operation in Sidaorjo, Lapindo Brantas, has been criticised for risking the safety of local people, and allegations of corruption have soured the air.



A criminal investigation has begun into several senior executives from Lapindo and one of their sub-contractors, but the company's lawyer, Masieyh Sutiono, said the company had done nothing wrong.

Instead, he said, the company was acting responsibly towards local people by offering food and compensation to those affected by the mud, while everyone waited for the results of the police investigation.

Lapindo has been trying to stem the flow of mud, but so far nothing has worked. The government, meanwhile, is anxious to keep the sludge away from any other residential areas and is putting its faith into a series of dams meant to contain the growing lake.

Trucks carrying mounds of earth to build these new barriers rumble up and down the main highway every couple of minutes, but the dams have not always proved effective.

Earlier this month, a barrier around the village of Shiring burst, causing a second wave of refugees. Many of those living close to the affected area have now moved out, and many of those that remain are thinking about it.

Rainy season

Mrs Jhoni watches the trucks come and go from the front of her button and bead shop on the main highway. She is reluctant to leave her customers, and her shop - which is raised a little way above the main road - will give her some protection.


Dams are being built to hold back the mud

But she says she is playing a "wait and see" game and is ready to run whenever things take a turn for the worse.

Officials are working against the clock.

The rainy season is due to begin in two months time, and plans to build a stronger, concrete barrier to cope with it have not convinced many of the experts brought in to find a solution. Heavy rainfall, they say, could break through the barrier in a matter of hours.

Pressure from environmentalists has so far prevented them from using the river to divert tonnes of sludge into the Java Sea.

But with pressure also growing from the local population to find a solution, and with the volume of mud increasing and the rainy season approaching, everyone in Sidoarjo is having to think hard about who will pay the cost of fixing the problem.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4798501.stm

Flooding in Texas....please keep our forum members who live in the area in your prayers along with all the communities that are experiencing the floods.

3 Dead in Texas Thunderstorms, Flooding
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/1006/369460.html