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Stiff winds whipped up a gigantic blaze in the mountains of eastern Arizona on Monday, forcing the evacuation of a third resort town and casting a smoky haze over states as far away as Iowa....

The Puyehue volcano in southern Chile erupted Saturday, sending a huge plume of smoke and ash into the sky and prompting officials to evacuate about 600 people living nearby. There were no reports of injuries. Authorities had put the area around the volcano on alert Saturday morning after a flurry of earthquakes, and the eruption began in the afternoon. The National Emergency Office said it recorded an average of 230 tremors an hour.

Two Arizona wildfires have consumed more than 200,000 acres and prompted evacuations, officials said.

At least two tornadoes struck Springfield, Massachusetts, and other communities in the western part of the state Wednesday, leaving "many injuries" and extensive damage, the state's governor said.

At least two tornadoes touched down near Chico in Northern California on Wednesday, causing some damage to structures but no injuries.

At least 2 people were killed in central Oklahoma in an outbreak of tornadoes, while other funnel clouds were reported near Dallas and Fort Worth.

17 people have been rescued from the rubble left by Sunday's tornado, but officials say efforts will continue throughout the day: 'We hope to find more folks.' The death toll from the tornado that crushed Joplin has risen to 117, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said on Tuesday, making it the deadliest such event in the U.S. since 1953.

Tornadoes tore through parts of the U.S. Midwest on Sunday, killing at least 30 people in the Missouri town of Joplin and causing one death in Minneapolis as well as causing extensive property damage.

A tornado swept through a small eastern Kansas town, killing one person and destroying at least 20 homes, as severe thunderstorms pelted the region with hail that some residents said was the size of baseballs, authorities said early Sunday.

A landslide buried 20 boys and four adults at a Malaysian orphanage Saturday where scores of rescuers were digging by their hands in soil softened by the rains to find the missing, police said.