LOS ANGELES, Sept 4, 2007 (AFP) - Around 40,000 homes across California were without power Tuesday as searing temperatures roasted the region and drained the electricity grid, authorities said.

Around 11,000 residents were still suffering from power outages across Los Angeles while a further 29,000 households were without electricity in the areas surrounding the metropolis, utility companies said.

TOKYO, Aug 24, 2007 (AFP) - Two inmates in cells without air conditioning or fans have died in Japan's heat wave, which has claimed dozens of lives this month, jail officers said Friday.

A 71-year-old man was found unconscious in his four square metre (43 square foot) cell without air conditioning or a fan at a jail in Saitama prefecture, where the mercury hit an all-time record 40.9 degrees (105.62 F) last week.

The man was immediately sent to hospital after being found last week but died two days later, said a jail officer in the prefecture in suburban Tokyo.

CHICAGO, Aug 23, 2007 (AFP) - Unrelenting storms and floods have forced thousands of people from their homes, while other US states have wilted in a record-breaking Heat Wave with the death toll from the extreme weather hitting the country rising to almost 50 Thursday.

Mudslides and murky floodwaters hampered rescue efforts in the central and southern states of Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin after a week of heavy rains that has left 23 dead.

TOKYO, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) - Nine more people were killed Friday as record-level summer temperatures scorched Japan, bringing the death toll from a heat wave to at least 56, officials and press reports said.

The sweaty weather has sent hundreds of people to hospitals and raised fears of an eventual power shortage, with Japan's largest nuclear power plant shut down since an earthquake last month.

At least 56 people have died this month in the heat wave, caused by high air pressure from the hot Pacific Ocean, according to a tally by public broadcaster NHK.

TOKYO, Aug 16, 2007 (AFP) - The temperature hit an all-time high in Japan on Thursday with the extreme summer heat bending train rails and killing at least 13 people this week, officials said.

The mercury shot up to a record 40.9 degrees Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit) Thursday afternoon in central Gifu prefecture and Saitama prefecture near Tokyo, the weather agency said.

The reading eclipsed the previous highest temperature recorded in Japan of 40.8 degrees set in northern Yamagata prefecture in 1933.

NICOSIA, Aug 1, 2007 (AFP) - A Spanish fisherman and an elderly Cypriot woman died of heatstroke as the holiday island sizzled in temperatures touching 40 degrees celsius (104 Fahrenheit) on Wednesday, doctors said.

The fisherman was found dead in his cabin in a trawler anchored at Limassol hours after after police rescued an ailing fellow crew member at sea.

The 38-year-old's body was found on the six-man Jose y Rafaela soon afer midnight Tuesday and later pronounced dead on arrival at Limassol hospital, police said.

NICOSIA, July 30, 2007 (AFP) - A Ukrainian man has died of heatstroke in Cyprus after a heavy drinking session as temperatures soared above 40 degrees celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), police said on Monday.

Chmyr Bogdan, 46, was found dead in his Nicosia apartment on Sunday during one of the hottest days of the year with the mercury rising to 44 degrees celsius.

'A preliminary investigation shows that death was caused by heatstroke after the deceased drank a large volume of alcohol,' a police spokesman told AFP on Monday.