Shopkeeper Nazer Mohammad ran home as soon as he heard about flash floods crashing into the outskirts of a provincial capital in northern Afghanistan. By the time he got there, there was nothing left, including his family of five.

"Everything happened just all of a sudden. I came home, but there was no home there, instead I saw all the neighborhood covered by mud and water," said Mohammad. 48. He said that he buried his wife and two sons aged 15 and 8 years, but he's still looking for two daughters, who are around 6 and 11 years old.

The number of people killed by flash floods and cold lava flow from a volcano in western Indonesia over the weekend has risen to 41 with 17 more missing, a local disaster agency official told AFP Monday.

Hours of heavy rain caused large volcanic rocks to roll down one of Indonesia's most active volcanos into two districts on Sumatra island Saturday evening, while flooding inundated roads, homes and mosques.

Puerto Rico's governor has declared a state of emergency following heavy rains, widespread flooding and landslides in the U.S. territory. One person has been reported missing.

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi also activated the National Guard on Wednesday to help 22 of the island's 78 municipalities that were hardest hit by incessant rains.

Lead screening conducted on west Maui residents after last summer's devastating wildfires showed no widespread exposure to the toxic metal, Hawaii health officials said.

Blood samples were taken from 557 people after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century ripped through the town of Lahaina, killing 101 people.

A Brazilian horse nicknamed Caramelo by social media users garnered national attention after a television news helicopter filmed him stranded on a rooftop in southern Brazil, where massive floods have killed more than 100 people.

About 24 hours after he was first spotted and with people clamoring for his rescue, a team in Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul state on Thursday successfully removed Caramelo, providing a dose of hope to a beleaguered region.

Hundreds of volunteers have set up a makeshift dog shelter in an abandoned, roofless warehouse in the Brazilian city of Canoas, one of the hardest hit by floods since last week. They treat and feed sick, hungry or injured dogs, hoping to reunite them with their owners.

Their work was at full speed Friday morning as heavy rains are expected again in the region for the weekend.

In sweltering Brazil, flooding killed dozens of people and paralyzed a city of about 4 million people. Voters and politicians in India, amid national elections, are fainting in heat that hit as high as 115 degrees (46.3 degrees Celsius).

A brutal Asian heat wave has closed schools in the Philippines, killed people in Thailand and set records there and in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Maldives and Myanmar. Record temperatures — especially at night when it just won't cool down — have hit many parts of Africa. Flooding devastated Houston, and the United States as a whole just had its second highest number of tornadoes for the month of April.

As major floods engulfed entire cities in the northern part of the Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul state last week, meteorologist Estael Sias knew the water would drain into capital Porto Alegre's metropolitan region and that she would need to find a safe place.

So she, her husband, three children, and two dogs left everything behind. Less than 24 hours later, water started filling her neighborhood in Canoas, now one of the state's most affected cities.

Forecasters warned a wave of dangerous storms in the U.S. could march through parts of the South early Thursday, after storms a day earlier spawned damaging tornadoes and massive hail, leaving two dead in Tennessee and one dead in North Carolina.

The storms continue an outbreak of torrential rain and tornadoes that has cut across the country this week, from the Plains to the Midwest and now the southeastern U.S. At least four people have died in storms since Monday.

The opening ceremony of the third edition of the Middle East Clean Energy Exhibition and Conference took place on Wednesday afternoon, May 8th. The event was attended by Minister of Energy and Water Walid Fayad. The exhibition and conference, specialized in clean and renewable energy, showcased cutting-edge technologies, along with a range of related solutions and services. Exhibitors presented their commercial products, including inverters, panels, batteries, solar heaters, and project financing. The event is scheduled to run until May 10th, 2024, at Hotel Phoenicia in the heart of Beirut.

The ceremony began with the Lebanese national anthem, followed by a speech by Beirut Expo's founder, Farhat Farhat, emphasizing the importance of holding such initiatives despite internal challenges and the war in southern Lebanon.