More than 40 people, most of them children, have frozen to death in what has been Afghanistan’s coldest winter in years, an Afghan health official said today.

A relentless downpour is threatening to trigger more landslides and made rescue work nearly impossible in the remote north-western China region where hundreds died in massive slides triggered by weekend flooding.

Overnight thunderstorms brought new misery to a remote area of north-western China today as the death toll from weekend flooding and massive landslides rose to 1,117.

At least 50 Parisians have died of heat-related illnesses after a week of record-setting temperatures, a French medical expert says.