Natural Disaster | featured news

Ever since hundreds of earthquakes began rippling through southeastern California over the weekend, many asked the question: Could this be a precursor to the Big One?

Into the carefully scripted Republican convention has come a complication: a natural disaster that not only distracts attention from Mitt Romney but sets up a collision with a fundamental tenet of today's GOP.

As the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall approaches, New Orleans -- and much of the Gulf Coast -- is preparing to put into practice the lessons learned from that defining storm. Tropical Storm Isaac is following a path eerily similar to Katrina's in 2005.

The death toll from Tropical Storm Isaac has climbed to nine after authorities in the Dominican Republic reported two deaths Sunday....

Tropical Storm Isaac is likely to be a hurricane when it hits the Florida Keys Sunday, strengthening to a Category 2 as it heads northwards towards the Gulf Coast later.

Air tankers and helicopters flew repeatedly into a deep rim rock canyon to douse the spearhead of a massive wildfire in Northern California and stop it from driving into a nearby mountain community and Lassen Volcanic National Park....

California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in three Northern California counties on Wednesday after a wildfire that has already destroyed 64 homes advanced with 75-foot flames on a tiny community at the doorstep of a national park.

A magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck off the coast of the U.S. West Coast state of Washington on Sunday, the United States Geological Survey said.

An earthquake that struck rural Indonesia left at least four people dead, authorities said Sunday. At least seven others were injured, according to the National Disaster Management Agency. The 6.6-magnitude hit Saturday near the city of Palu on the island of Sulawesi, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

As hundreds of residents in Washington and California were allowed to return to homes once threatened by major wildfires, some people were told to evacuate as encroaching blazes neared Idaho towns.