RESIDENTS of areas hit by natural disasters such as cyclones and storms could face carbon tax bills for the greenhouse emissions arising from rubbish created by the disaster, a Senate estimates hearing was told yesterday.

The revelation came as the government released a list of 104 local councils it believes may have to pay the tax because of the carbon emissions from rubbish dumps, 46 of which are in NSW and 21 in Victoria.

A 5.6 magnitude earthquake shook Bulgaria's capital Sofia early on Tuesday, causing residents to rush into the streets, the civil defence office said.

The quake, which occurred at 3 a.m. local time, shook apartment buildings and rattled windows but caused no casualties or damage, Nikolay Nikolov, an official from the office was quoted as saying by the national radio, citing initial reports.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the temblor was cantered about 14 miles (24 km) west of Sofia and occurred at a relatively shallow depth of 5.8 miles (9.4 km).

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said the climate models it monitors indicate a possible return of the El Nino weather pattern, often linked to heavy rainfall and droughts, in the second half of 2012.

The last severe El Nino in 1998 killed more than 2,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damage to crops, infrastructure and mines in Australia and other parts of Asia.

Coastal seagrass can store more heat-trapping carbon per square mile (kilmometre) than forests can, which means these coastal plants could be part of the solution to climate change, scientists said in a new study.

Even though seagrasses occupy less than 0.2 percent of the world's oceans, they can hold up to 83,000 metric tons of carbon per square kilometer, a global team of researchers reported Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

That is more than twice the 30,000 metric tons of carbon per square kilometer a typical terrestrial forest can store.

Wars keep children out of school. So does sickness. But in Niger, a sun-baked land where drought occurs with alarming frequency, a major impediment to education is thirst and the long trek required to quench it.

The school day had already begun on a recent morning as a procession of small children on donkeys, school-age all, made their way over a sandy field, joining other youths gathered with their animals around deep holes in the ground.

The entire Vidarbha region in Maharashtra is facing a drought-like situation following huge water scarcity due to drying of lakes and wells in most of the villages due to intense heat wave conditions. Approximately 4,300 villages are facing the grim situation as village wells and water bodies are drying up fast, prompting the administration to supply water through tankers for human consumption and live stock.

Floods triggered by heavy rains left two people missing and damaged homes in Northwest China's Gansu province Sunday, local authorities said.

From 10 pm Sunday to 1:30 am Monday, floods battered several counties and districts in the provincial capital of Lanzhou, leaving two people missing in Gucheng village and destroying a single home in Shengou village, according to the provincial government's general office.

A small earthquake with a magnitude of 2.3 on the Richter scale hit the western province of Kanchanaburi on Monday, the Meteorological Department's Seismological Bureau reported.

The earthquake struck at 11.51am in Sai Yok district.

There were no reports of damage or casualties.

Japan was hit by two shallow earthquakes in the space of just eight minutes on Sunday, one of them measuring a strong 6.2-magnitude, but there were no reports of damage and no tsunami alert.

The 6.2-magnitude quake struck at 4:20pm (0720 GMT) off Japan’s northeast Pacific coast, the national meteorological agency said, followed by a tremor with a reading of 5.7 at 4:28pm.

The US Geological Survey estimated the magnitude of the first quake at 6.0. The depth of both quakes was about 10 kms, the agency said.

A strong earthquake in northern Italy killed at least six people, injured dozens and damaged historic buildings including a famed mediaeval castle early on Sunday, waking terrified citizens and sending thousands running into the streets.

The quake, which the U.S. Geological Survey recorded at magnitude 6.0, struck at 4:04 a.m. (0204 GMT) and was followed by a series of jolting aftershocks. At least two of them reached magnitude 5.1, sowing fresh panic, further damaging already weakened buildings and causing more structures to collapse.