Japan has declared a state of emergency at a nuclear power plant when its cooling system failed after the massive earthquake struck.

The United Nations appeared to have met its target of €358m in immediate aid for flood-stricken Pakistan today, after Ireland, the US and other nations dramatically upped their pledges.

PRESIDENT Asif Ali Zardari returned yesterday to flood-ravaged Pakistan, where he faced a storm of criticism for visiting Europe as his country was gripped by what his government called the nation’s worst natural disaster.

Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari returned to his flood-ravaged country and a storm of criticism today for visiting Europe amid the nation’s worst natural disaster.

Rescuers in three countries across Asia struggled to reach survivors from massive flooding that afflicted millions of people, as the death toll climbed in a remote Chinese town where hundreds died and more than 1,100 were missing from landslides.

THE Pakistan floods could affect more people than the world’s last three great disasters combined, the UN warned yesterday.

The Pakistan floods could affect more people than the world’s last three great disasters combined, the UN warned today.

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.1 has struck Indonesia’s North Maluku province.

THE effort to help Haiti recover from its devastating earthquake can draw on lessons learned in other large-scale tragedies, particularly the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed at least 230,000 people across a dozen countries, rescue officials say.

The staggering scope of Haiti’s nightmare came into sharper focus today as rescuers estimated 200,000 dead and 1.5 million homeless in the quake-ravaged country.

A powerful earthquake struck deep under the sea in eastern Indonesia today, causing panic and sending residents running out of their homes, officials and witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

Stunned Samoans combed through the sodden wreckage of their lives today and told of the terror of the tsunami that ravaged towns and killed at least 149 people in the South Pacific.

Thousands of people were feared killed by a massive earthquake that flattened homes in Sumatra today.

Soldiers and police dug through piles of mud and debris today looking for bodies after a dam burst outside Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, demolishing hundreds of houses, uprooting trees and killing at least 69 people. Dozens more were missing.

TORRENTIAL rain caused a colonial-era dam to burst outside the Indonesian capital early yesterday, sending a wall of muddy water crashing into a densely packed neighbourhood and killing at least 58 people.

A series of powerful earthquakes shook remote eastern Indonesia today, toppling or badly damaging more than 100 buildings and leaving at least four people dead and dozens injured.

The United Nations said today another cyclone was forming near Burma, less than two weeks after it was devastated by a killer storm.

The international aid effort for hundreds of thousands of Burma’s cyclone victims finally gathered pace today.

The fault line that spawned the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami has ruptured nearly 20 times this month, with three strong quakes in the last 24 hours alone.

AUTHORITIES yesterday found the two flight data recorders from a plane that crashed and killed 89 people on Thailand’s resort island of Phuket, while an airline official said wind shear may have doomed the flight.

Investigators are today searching through charred remains of a plane that crashed and killed 90 people – mostly foreigners – on Thailand’s resort island of Phuket, while an airline official said wind shear may have doomed the flight.

Thousands of people in the Maldives are voting today in a referendum being hailed as the tiny Indian Ocean nation’s first real expression of democracy.

International aid trickled to survivors today after the earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of the Solomon Islands.

AUTHORITIES yesterday began burying Thailand’s last 110 unidentified victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, a little more than two weeks before the disaster’s second anniversary.

An international aid group said today it found the bodies of two more of its workers after discovering 15 others killed last week in Sri Lanka’s northeast, as a car bomb explosion outside a girls’ school left at least two people dead.

A powerful earthquake sent a two-metre high tsunami crashing into a beach resort on Indonesia's Java island today, killing at least six people and causing extensive damage to hotels, restaurants and homes, police and witnesses said.

TROOPS began delivering aid yesterday to an estimated 7,000 people who lost their homes to the cyclone that battered Australia's northeastern coast.

Troops began moving aid to the cyclone-shattered town of Innisfail today as residents picked through waterlogged streets littered with rubble and mangled roofs destroyed by one of Australia’s most powerful cyclones in decades.