Floodwaters are swamping two central Queensland towns as the huge clean-up continues in two others that bore the brunt of Cyclone Marcia's fury.

The big rebuild has begun in central Queensland with the army joining efforts in the mop-up of the war-zone-like destruction left by Cyclone Marcia.

Rescue and recovery teams have entered the four remote Australian Northern Territory communities hit hardest by Cyclone Lam and are beginning to catalogue the damage.

Communities in coastal Queensland and New South Wales are bracing themselves for downpours of up to 500mm.

A woman cried "everything's gone" before collapsing as her family's home went up in flames yesterday.

Minutes after an inferno ripped across a tinder-dry paddock behind her Christchurch home, Julia Walker thought she was going to die.

A teenage farmhand became an accidental hero after keeping a potentially disastrous scrub fire at bay.

Vo Van Duong's bamboo and coconut leaf house looks much like others deep in Vietnam's Mekong Delta.

A state-of-the-art laboratory near Franz Josef Glacier is being packed up after an ambitious drilling operation came to a premature end before scientists could bore through the high-risk Alpine Fault.

On Boxing Day morning, 2004, Leone Cosens had called from Thailand to chat and sister Claire Gurunathan was racing to collect family at the airport.

They had sailed from New Zealand in 2002 and were two years into their adventure when they moored in a bay off Phuket in Thailand for Christmas.

It was the first time in 40 years Andrew Welch had not been home for Christmas, his brother Jeremy recalls.

"I had never seen in my life so much destruction and death on such a massive scale. I remember going to a place called Lambaro, just outside Banda Aceh...

It was Christmas Day and life seemed perfect for Petra Nemcova. The Czech model had already graced the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine...

Mike Bush was in Bangkok when the Boxing Day earthquake struck and even though he was 1250km from the epicentre, he felt it.

The US Pacific coast's most ferocious storm in years has moved south, bringing hurricane force winds and heavy downpours to southern California one day after claiming two lives in the Northwest.

A powerful typhoon destroyed homes and flooded low-lying coastal villages in the Philippines, forcing a million people to flee to safety and reportedly leaving at least three dead.

Scores of walkers were still missing in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal yesterday, after a blizzard that is now known to have claimed the lives of more than 40 people.

The most powerful earthquake to strike California for 25 years has heightened fears that the state may soon face a "mega-quake" with a strength exceeding 7.5.

Senior firefighter Terry Gyde tunnelled his way into the twisted steel and concrete of two collapsed buildings in the aftermath of the February 22, 2011 earthquake.

A tropical storm was moving out into the Sea of Japan last night after lashing the country with rain and winds, leaving one person dead and more than 50 injured.

Tropical Storm Iselle brought big surf, strong winds and heavy rain to Hawaii last night, but the severe weather did not disrupt Air New Zealand flights.

Lindsay Jones has no desire to knock down his 129-year-old church at the top of Queen St. But as things stand, the senior pastor and his congregation can't afford to keep it open either.

A billion-dollar earthquake upgrade affecting about one in 10 commercial and multi-storey apartment buildings is set for a major overhaul.

As Hurricane Iselle approached Hawaii last night, Kiwi holidaymakers were bracing themselves for a potential stranding on the tropical islands.

The civil engineer behind Christchurch's CTV building is no longer under investigation - after an inquiry was dropped upon legal advice.