Rebel News - Independent News and Analysis

The United Nations says floods have now affected more than 21-million people in Pakistan as advancing floodwaters continue to threaten more towns in the country's south.

The world body made the announcement following more flooding in the southern province of Sindh.

High winds have helped spread roaring wildfires through the US state of Colorado forcing hundreds to evacuate their homes in the region.

A blaze broke out Monday in Colorado's Four Mile Canyon and rapidly spread across 3,500 acres of land due to 45-mph wind gusts.

Several towns in southeastern Australia remain on high alert as rising flood waters have caused millions of dollars of damage in the state of Victoria.

Hundreds of properties have already been evacuated and emergency forces have been on standby to rescue stranded residents.

Unrelenting downpours, flooding and landslides continue to afflict the devastated Central American state of Guatemala, as the death toll of the disasters reaches 45.

This while according to Guatemala's disaster agency, over 16 people remain missing while another 56 have been hospitalized for injuries.

Days of heavy rainfall and flooding in northeast Ethiopia have displaced another 16,000 people and caused extensive damage to agricultural crops, report says.

Crops and "livelihood assets" were destroyed, roads submerged and bridges swept away in Afar, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement on Monday.

Pakistan army says rescue operations to save flood-hit victims in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have been completed as around 100,000 stranded people have been moved to safe locations.

Sixty-five relief and 58 medical camps are working under the aegis of the army for the welfare of the flood victims, army's top commander in Peshawar, Lieutenant General Asif Yasin Malik, briefed reporters on Monday.

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom has declared a "national tragedy" after landslides in the Central American nation killed around 40 people and left scores missing.

"It's a national tragedy," Colom said as he visited a site where up to 40 people were feared to have been buried alive in a mudslide, AFP reported on Monday.

Guatemalan authorities say it is feared that over 100 people have been buried in a fresh landslide, caused by torrential rains and flooding.

In one of the worst incidents, a hillside collapsed on a crowd of volunteers on Sunday as they tried to dig out a bus buried under a previous mudslide. The event left 12 people dead.

The American official in charge of cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill says that the BP oil well poses no further risk to the environment.

"I'm very pleased to announce that with the new blowout preventer on this well, and the cement that was previously put in … this well does not constitute a threat to the Gulf of Mexico at this point," said Thad Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral in charge of the crisis.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) says it plans to set up two more makeshift medical camps in flood-stricken Pakistan and boost aid supplies to the country.

"The [Iranian] Red Crescent plans to set up two more medical camps …and to dispatch more than 1,350 tons in medical and food supplies for the [flood] victims," IRCS President Abolhassan Faghih said Sunday.