After a summer of drought, heat waves and forest fires, violent storms are whipping France and neighboring countries and have flooded Paris subway stations, snarled traffic and disrupted the president's agenda.

Winds over 100 kph (60 mph) were recorded at the top of the Eiffel Tower during a flash flood Tuesday, and similar winds were forecast Wednesday in the southeast.

An approaching wildfire in eastern has Spain caused a train driver to stop and prepare to change directions to avoid the flames, and several passengers were injured when they got off rather than wait, authorities said.

The train was traveling in the Valencia region on Tuesday night when the driver decided to reverse course because of the wildfire advancing from around the town of Bejís, further east.

A violent thunderstorm hit the French island of Corsica on Thursday morning, leaving three people dead and a dozen others injured, local authorities said.

A 13-year-old girl died after a tree fell in a campsite in the coastal town of Sagone, the Corsica prefecture said in a statement. A 72-year-old woman was killed when the roof of a beach restaurant fell on her vehicle in Coggia, south of Sagone.

Kristen Burckhartt felt overwhelmed. She needed time to reflect, to let it sink in that she had just briefly soaked her feet in the water where Jesus is said to have been baptized, in the Jordan River.

"It's very profound," said the 53-year-old visitor from Indiana. "I have not ever walked where Jesus walked, for one thing."

A sudden rainstorm in western China triggered a landslide that diverted a river and caused flash flooding in populated areas, killing at least 16 people and leaving 18 others missing, Chinese state media said Thursday.

Rescuers, who earlier reported 36 people missing, had found 18 of them by early afternoon, state broadcaster CCTV said in an online update. The Wednesday night disaster affected more than 6,000 people in six villages in Qinghai province, CCTV said.

While vacationers might enjoy the Mediterranean Sea's summer warmth, climate scientists are warning of dire consequences for its marine life as it burns up in a series of severe heat waves.

From Barcelona to Tel Aviv, scientists say they are witnessing exceptional temperature hikes ranging from 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) to 5 degrees Celsius (9 Fahrenheit) above the norm for this time of year. Water temperatures have regularly exceeded 30 C (86 F) on some days.

The federal government on Tuesday is expected to announce water cuts to states that rely on the Colorado River as drought and climate change leave less water flowing through the river and deplete the reservoirs that store it.

The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people across seven states in the American West as well as Mexico and helps feed an agricultural industry valued at $15 billion a year. Cities and farms across the region are anxiously awaiting official hydrology projections — estimates of future water levels in the river — that will determine the extent and scope of cuts to their water supply.

Germany's main industry lobby group warned Tuesday that factories may have to throttle production or halt it completely because plunging water levels on the Rhine River are making it harder to transport cargo.

Water levels on the Rhine at Emmerich, near the Dutch border, dropped by a further four centimeters (1.6 inches) in 24 hours, hitting zero on the depth gauge.

German officials expressed mounting anger Monday at the slow flow of information from Poland about a polluted border river as experts raced to discover what killed tens of thousands of fish.

German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke demanded a transparent and full investigation into the cause for the massive fish die-off in the Oder River after having met her Polish counterpart in Szczecin on Sunday evening.

EDUCITY & Beirut Expo have announced that Middle East Clean Energy, the premiere renewable and sustainable energy trade fair and conference in Lebanon and the wider Levant, will be held in Beirut on September 7-9, 2022.

Middle East Clean Energy 2022 is organized in response to an unprecedented rise in demand for modern equipment and technologies that leverage renewable energy in Lebanon and the region. In 2021 alone in Lebanon, despite its crisis, customers spent $800 million on clean energy solutions.