JAKARTA -- Floods caused by torrential rains have forced 17,648 people to flee home and take shelters in Tebing Tinggi city in North Sumatra, Indonesia, head of the city's disaster agency told Xinhua over phone on Monday.
Sea-level rise since the Industrial Revolution has been fast by natural standards and may reach 80 cm above today's sea-level by the year 2100 and 2.5 m by 2200 even without development of unexpected processes, according to a new research made public on Friday.