Nearly 2,000 residents were evacuated and two homes burned in a wildfire that started when three people lit a campfire in the dry foothills of Southern California's San Gabriel Mountains, authorities said.

A woman was forced to call the police for help after she got stuck in a charity bin.

The cost of the massive Oklahoma tornado could top two billion dollars (€1.5bn), according to early estimates.

Emergency crews were nearing the end of their search for survivors last night in the broken remnants of an Oklahoma City suburb where a massive tornado flattened homes and demolished a primary school.

Five people found gunned down in a house in New Mexico were identified today as a fire brigade chaplain, his wife, and three of their children.

A British firefighter has broken his ankle while trying to save a goldfish.

Up to 60 people were left homeless after fire tore through their San Francisco apartment building.

A delivery man in the US made sure he saved his pizzas when his motor was turned into a mangled mess after being hit by a train.

A fire sparked as workers mixed chemicals at a plant south of Dallas shot massive plumes of black smoke and bright orange flames into the sky, forcing schoolchildren and residents to evacuate or take cover indoors to avoid possible exposure to dangerous gases.

The death toll from the devastating tornadoes that hit America’s south climbed to 337 today, making it the second-deadliest day for a tornado outbreak in US history.

US president Barack Obama said he had "never seen devastation like this" as he viewed the wreckage left by tornadoes which killed almost 300 people in the US South.

A mother killed herself and her three children by driving into New York’s Hudson River minutes after a domestic dispute.

Unlicensed welders were detained by police in China today after a blaze engulfed a high-rise apartment building under renovation in Shanghai, killing 53 people and injuring more than 70 others.

A quarter of the homes burned in an enormous blaze sparked after a gas line ruptured are still too hot to search for victims, fire officials said tonight.

At least one person was killed and more than 50 homes destroyed when a huge explosion sent flames roaring through a neighbourhood in hills south of San Francisco, California fire chiefs said today.

The death toll from a tornado in the US has risen to at least seven after storms unleashed a “war zone” of destruction in north-west Ohio.

Minneapolis investigators were today trying to pinpoint the cause of a fire that gutted a building containing several apartments and an Irish pub, killing three adults and three children.

A Washington Metro train crashed into the rear of another during rush hour yesterday, killing at least four people and injuring scores of others as cars of one train jack-knifed into the air and fell atop the other.

A cool sea breeze provided some relief for US firefighters battling a blaze which has destroyed scores of homes in California, but they feared dry inland winds could return to stoke the fire today.

Powerful winds have pushed a raging wildfire to the doorstep of a wealthy US coastal city, threatening to destroy dozens more homes and leading to the evacuation of more than 20,000 people.

Alaska governor Sarah Palin said an arson attack on her home church could have been linked to “undeserved negative attention” from her failed Republican vice-presidential campaign.

Several more bodies remain in the wreckage of a crashed commuter train, in addition to the 18 confirmed deaths already announced, a Los Angeles County coroner’s official said today.

A monster-sized Hurricane Ike bore down on the Texas coast, threatening to rattle the sparkling skyscrapers of America’s fourth-largest city, shut down the heart of the US oil industry for days and obliterate waterfront towns already flooded with waist-high water.

A 12-year-old girl who fell into a chimney on her Manhattan rooftop and plummeted 14 stories down the flue survived almost unscathed when she landed in a pile of soot.

A pre-dawn fire tore through a home where three generations of the same family lived, killing 10 people, most of them children.

Three million-dollar dream homes in a Washington suburb were turned into ashes in a blaze apparently started by eco-terrorists.

Four children have died after a school bus and two other vehicles crashed in Minnesota.

A rush-hour crawl that gave vehicles little momentum to slide into the river and a bridge design that minimised falling debris appear to have kept the death toll relatively low in the collapse of a bridge into the Mississippi River.

US President George Bush plans to visit the site of a bridge collapse in Minneapolis today after Congress voted to direct $250m (€181m) for the structure to be rebuilt.

At least seven people died when a freeway bridge suddenly broke into huge sections and collapsed into the Mississippi River in the US during rush-hour traffic jams.

A man used pocket knives to amputate his own leg in order to free himself after being pinned under a tree for almost 11 hours, authorities in the US said.

US President George Bush will tomorrow visit areas hit by a tornadoes that have killed at least 20 people in several American states, including eight students at an Alabama high school.

A passenger in an American Eagle plane on the ground at the Toledo airport in Ohio called authorities today on a mobile phone to report a bomb threat, the authorities said.

Firefighters freed an injured construction worker trapped for hours under tons of concrete yesterday after part of the old convention centre in Phoenix, Arizona, abruptly collapsed during demolition work.

A line of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes have torn across America’s midsection, peeling away roofs, overturning cars and killing at least 10 people in Tennessee.

Firefighters weary from three days of battling blazes that have ravaged 840,000 acres and killed 11 people in the US state of Texas, braced for the threat of strong winds to return.

A powerful earthquake shook Greece yesterday and was felt across many parts of the Mediterranean, but caused only slight damage and three minor injuries, authorities said.

Hurricane Rita ploughed into the Gulf Coast early today, lashing Texas and Louisiana with driving rain, threatening to flood low-lying regions and knocking power out to half a million people as transformers exploded in the pre-dawn sky.

Nearly 5,000 people ordered to flee their homes because of a huge brush fire on Hawaii’s Big Island were allowed to return, finding their property dusted with a layer of ash but otherwise undamaged.

A motorist was being questioned by police tonight after two commuter trains collided in Los Angeles, killing nine and injuring more than 100 passengers.

Hurricane Frances churned its way toward the Bahamas today after forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes in the nearby British territory of Turks and Caicos as the Caribbean faced one of its strongest storms in years.

More than 50 people were injured when a balcony at a US bar and casino collapsed with dozens of people on it, officials said today.

A third major US wildfire near the Angeles National Forest has spread to more than 8,000 acres, threatening hundreds of homes on the edge of the Mojave Desert.

More aftershocks rattled central California today following a magnitude 6.5 earthquake that killed two people, injuring dozens and wrecked a landmark clock tower.