Power plant accident in Russia kills 8, scores missing.

MOSCOW : water pipes ruptured at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant early Monday causing flooding that killed at least eight people and left scores missing, officials said.

The accident caused major power distruption in Siberia. Officials said 8 plant workers were killed and 14 injured when a sudden change in water pressure caused the rupture at the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant in the Khakassia region. Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu and Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko are heading to the scene to take personal control of the crisis. - AFP

South Korean firm to open major dog cloning centre

SEOUL : A South Korean biotechnology firm will early next year open a centre capable eventually of producing up to 1,000 cloned dogs annually, a company executive said Friday.

"We need this new facility to turn dog cloning services into a full-fledged busines," Cho Seong-Ryul, director of RNL Bio, told AFP.

The centre in Yongin city south of Seoul will cost some five million dollars and focus on cloning pets, working dogs and endangered species including wolves.

Taiwan scrambles to rescue 700 in landslide villages as death toll reaches 66

Taiwan Wednesday began airlifting to safety more than 700 people found alive in a trio of villages flattened by muddy landslides, as the island's death toll from Typhoon Morakot hit 66. The military launched the helicopter operation in the battered island's south after the region was hit by its worst flooding in half a century, inundating entire villages in water and mud and cutting off all access by road. Officials are unable to confirm how many people had been buried or killed by the landslide in Hsiaolin and in two other remote villages nearby. - AFP

70 dead as typhoons pound East Asia

CHISHAN, Taiwan - Typhoons pummelling East Asia have killed at least 70 people, with rescuers in Taiwan battling to find survivors of a mudslide that may have buried about 100 villagers, officials said Tuesday.

A total of 50 people were confirmed dead in Taiwan and 58 were listed as missing, not counting the mudslide victims, after Typhoon Morakot unleashed the island's worst flooding in half a century over the weekend.

Plane carrying 13, missing over PNG

Port Moresby - A small passenger plane carrying 13 people including nine Australians went missing over Papua New Guinea Tuesday and was feared to have crashed, the airline and Australian officials said.

The 20-seater Twin Otter craft dissapeared at 10:53am (0053 GMT) enroute to popular tourist destination Kokoda after taking off from the South Pacific nation's capital Port Moresby.

100 feared buried alive, 41 dead in typhoon-hit Taiwan

A mudslide engulfed a mountain village in southern Taiwan leaving 100 people feared buried alive, officials said Tuesday, as the confirmed death toll from Typhoon Morakot on the island hit 41.

Taiwan's worst flooding in half a century had left another 62 people missing, not counting the disaster in the remote village of Hsiaolin. tales of individual heroism emerged, as rescue missions moved into full swing across Taiwan with authorities rushing out helicopters to remote areas cut off by fallen bridges or raging rivers. - AFP

Strong quakes hit Japan, India, and Indonesia; Tsunami warnings canceled

Powerful earthquakes just over 10 minutes apart rattled Japan and India Tuesday, triggering panic on fears of a tsunami in the Andaman Islands and injuring dozens of people southwest of Tokyo. The unrelated quakes struck in the early hours, shutting down bullet train services in the affected region of Japan and provoking a landslide with the nation already braced for more damage from Typhoon Etau.

At least 43 people were injured, mostly by falling objects, with two in a serious condition, said a Shizuoka prefecture official. - AFP

31 dead as typhoons hit East Asia

Taipei - At least 31 people were known to have died and scores more were reported missing Monday after typhoons battered East Asia, as parts of the region experienced their worst weather in half a century.

Almost half of those killed were in Taiwan when Typhoon Morakot slammed into the island, dumping a record 2.5 metres of rain at the weekend.

Wreckage from missing plane found in Indonesia

Wreckage from a plane that went missing over Indonesia's rugged Papua region with 16 people on board was found Tuesday in dense jungle, an airline executive said. Search and rescue teams are trying to land in the area by helicopter but there is little hope any passengers or crew, all Indonesians, will be found alive.

An airborne search team saw the wreckage near Ampisibil village in Bintang Mountains Regency at 2100 GMT, at a height of 2,850 metres. The site of the crash is about 37km south of Oksibil. - AFP

Beijing's smog is back year after Olympics

One year after staging a mostly pollution-free Olympics, Beijing has seen its skies shrouded in haze again, highlighting what observers call a mixed Olympic legacy on the environment.

An air quality index published on social networking site Twitter by the US embassy has catalogued near-daily "unhealthy" readings in recent months. Just last week, as the anniversary neared, the embassy's US-standard readings spiked to "hazardous" as a familiar choking pall settled on the city. - AFP