Zhou Ke / Xinhua via Zuma Press

A car is stranded in a flooded tunnel after a heavy rainstorm hit China's Jiangxi Province on May 12, flooding roads in several cities.

China's national observatory yesterday upgraded the warning level from blue to yellow for a new round of rainstorms expected to hit the country's southern regions over next three days.

The National Meteorological Center urged local authorities in south China to strengthen monitoring and guard against possible geological disasters such as landslides.

The national observatory uses a four-tier color-coded weather warning system, with red being the most severe, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

-- Reported by eastday.com

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AFP - Getty Images

A young girl makes her way along a mud-covered street after a storm hit the village of Minxian, China. Forty people were killed when a brief but violent hailstorm and torrential rain swept through a mountainous region of northwest China.

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Reuters

A woman breaks down with her son as the search for her missing husband continues.

A flash flood was reportedly caused by an avalanche in the Annapurna mountain range, in Kaski district of Nepal, May 5. At least 13 people, including three foreigners are confirmed to have died during the flood in Pokhara and adjoining villages in Kaski district.

Reuters

The body of a victim is retrieved at the bank of the Seti River by locals.

Lukas Coch / EPA

Thousands of spiders build new webs after floodwaters forced them to move to higher ground, in Wagga Wagga, Australia on March 6, 2012.

Thousands of spiders have cast eerie webs over vast areas of flood-hit Australia after being forced to seek shelter by the rising waters, Reuters reports.

Daniel Munoz / Reuters

Wild plants covered in spiders' webs in Wagga Wagga on March 7, 2012.

Experts said the spiders may be spinning the sticky webs to help them survive the deluge, which has forced thousands of people to leave their homes over the past week.

"What we've seen here is a type of wolf spider," Owen Seeman, arachnid expert at Queensland Museum, told Reuters. "They are trying to hide away (from the waters)."

The spider webs were seen near the inland city of Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, where 8,000 people were forced from their homes before the flood waters receded on Wednesday.

The Australian Museum's entomology collections manager Graham Milledge said the spiders' behavior was known as ballooning, and was typical after spiders are forced to flee from floods.

"They often do it as a way of dispersing and getting into a new area," Milledge told the news.com.au website. "In an event like this, they are just trying to escape the floods."

Last year PhotoBlog published images of a similar phenomenon in Pakistan. 

Daniel Munoz / Reuters

A house is surrounded by spiders' webs next to flood waters in Wagga Wagga on March 6, 2012.

Lukas Coch / EPA

Sydney's Taronga Zoo said Australia's spider population has boomed in the wet weather.

Daniel Munoz / Reuters

Parts of North Wagga are submerged in floodwaters in Wagga Wagga, Australia on March 6, 2012.

Lukas Coch / EPA

Volunteers load sandbags onto a truck at the State Emergency Services headquarters in Wagga Wagga on March 6, 2012.

Dannielle Upfield / Wagga Wagga City Council via EPA

Floodwaters on the Sturt Highway in Flowerdale near Wagga Wagga on March 6.

msnbc.com staff and news services report — Floods across eastern Australia forced more than 13,000 people to evacuate their homes on Tuesday after record-high summer rains drenched three states over the past week, swelling rivers and forcing dams to overflow.

In the worst-hit state of New South Wales, authorities ordered 8,000 people to leave their homes in the inland city of Wagga Wagga, where flood waters were expected to breach an 11-meter levee and swamp houses and the main business district.

Thousands of people in Wagga Wagga moved to shelter at local schools, while the center of the town, home to around 60,000 people, was deserted on Tuesday. Continue reading.

Lukas Coch / EPA

Volunteers fill sandbags at the State Emergency Services headquarters in Wagga Wagga on March 6, 2012.

Daniel Munoz / Reuters

A rescue team navigates in a flooded road in Wagga Wagga on March 6, 2012.

BULFOTO via AFP - Getty Images

A car stands in the flooded village of Biser on Monday. At least eight people drowned as torrential rains and overflowing rivers broke a dam wall and swept through whole villages in southern Bulgaria on Monday, officials said. Four elderly people drowned trapped in their houses in the southeastern village of Biser as a nearby dam wall broke, submerging the whole village under 2.5 metres (eight feet) of icy water, the interior ministry said.

AP

A man sorts through the remains of his home in the village of Bisser, about 180 miles east of the capital Sofia, on Monday.

BULFOTO via AFP - Getty Images

A man stands next to a collapsed house in the flooded village of Biser on Monday.

AP reports that the flooding may reach neighboring Greece and Turkey:

Authorities have declared a state of emergency in much of southern Bulgaria due to the heavy rain. District governor Irena Uzunova said four others were killed and 10 people are still missing in the floods that have washed away bridges and roads.

Bulgaria's civil defense agency warned that two bigger dams at Ivaylovgrad and Studena were also on the brink of overflowing and residents were urged to prepare for an evacuation. The government also warned Turkey and Greece of floods surging down the Arda, Tundzha and Maritsa rivers.

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Brad Hunter / Pool via AFP - Getty Images

An aerial photo shows an extensively flooded area in the New South Wales town of Moree on Feb. 3, 2012. More than 10,000 Australians were stranded by flooding in the country's east, with thousands ordered to leave their homes or businesses and the military called in to airlift supplies.

Wolter Peeters / EPA

Floodwaters inundate property in Moree on Feb. 3, 2012. The Mehi river near the town is expected to swell up to levels not seen since 1976.

Brad Hunter / Pool via Reuters

Floodwaters are seen near the town of Moree on Feb. 3, 2012.

Military helicopters evacuated stranded residents from Australian towns inundated by summer floods on Friday, Reuters reports, and authorities warned of further flash flooding.

More than 11,000 people in Queensland state have been isolated by the flooding and thousands had been evacuated, emergency services authorities said.

The town of Moree, the centre of the region's cotton growing, has been cut in half by record floodwaters, while authorities are using helicopters to relocate 300 people already at an evacuation center in the outback town of Roma to higher ground. Read the full story.

Foto24 / Gallo Images via Getty Images

Damaged roads caused by flooding on Jan. 19, in Hoedspruit, South Africa. People were plucked from the roofs of their submerged houses and others from trees where they'd been trapped after torrential rain in the Hoedspuit area in Limpopo, where up to 11 inches of rainfall was measured.

Foto24 / Gallo Images via Getty Images

Aerial view of a flooded area on Jan. 19 in Hoedspruit, South Africa.

Noel Klopper / South African Air Force via EPA

An aerial view of an overflowing dam wall in Mpumalanga, South Africa, on Jan. 20. Hundreds of people have been made homeless by heavy flooding in South Africa and Mozambique according to officials. Heavy rain in a short period of time in this part of Southern Africa caused the floods prompting many to seek refuge on rooftops and in trees and an evacuation of the Kruger National Park, a game reserve in northern South Africa. Rescuers have used helicopters to save at least 150 people from submerged houses in the area.

Heavy rain in southeast Africa has caused serious flooding and damage in South Africa and Mozambique. About 20 foreign tourists had to be airlifted out of South Africa's Kruger National Park, which has been closed since flooding destroyed roads there, according to Reuters. In Mozambique, more than 5,000 have evacuated their homes and five deaths have been reported.

Beawiharta / Reuters

Sofiah, right, and her friends walk to school at Sanghiang Tanjung village in Lebak regency, Banten, Indonesia on Jan. 19, 2012.

Beawiharta / Reuters

Students hold on to the side steel bars of a collapsed bridge as they cross a river to get to school in Sanghiang Tanjung on Jan. 19, 2012

For Sofiah and her classmates, the journey to school just got a whole lot harder. The Indonesian schoolgirl lives on one side of the Ciberang River but her school in the village of Sanghiang Tanjung is on the other - and the river has been flooding.

On Monday, the rising waters broke a pillar supporting a suspension bridge that crosses it, the head of the village told Reuters.

Faced with an extra 30 minutes' walk to cross via an alternate bridge, Sofiah and her friends have chosen to undertake the precarious crossing of the collapsed bridge instead.

As word has spread, the media gathered to film a feat worthy of Indiana Jones. But the children don't appear to be perturbed, safely making it across and continuing to school.

At least they have something to say when their parents ask, "What happened at school today?"

• Read photographer Beawiharta's blog about shooting this story.

Beawiharta / Reuters

Sofiah, left, and her friend cross the bridge on Jan. 19, 2012.

Beawiharta / Reuters

Sofiah stands on a chair as she writes on a whiteboard after reaching school on Jan. 19, 2012.

Marco De Swart / EPA

A view of downtown Dordrecht as the high water level in the Netherlands city reached its peak at 03:00 am CET on Jan. 6, 2012. The northern Dutch provinces were hit by strong winds and heavy rainfall in the last several days.

Marco De Swart / AFP - Getty Images

Water laps around a window in Dordrecht on Jan. 6, 2012. The authorities ordered the evacuation of about 800 people living in the north of the country fearing heavy rains could cause a dike to collapse, police said.

Koen Van Weel / EPA

Sandbags near a leaking dike at Eemskanaal (a canal) in Woltersum, Groningen, on Jan. 6, 2012.

The Associated Press reports from THE HAGUE, Netherlands: 

Police and military personnel began evacuating 800 people from four villages in the low-lying northern Netherlands on Friday amid fears of a dike break following days of drenching rains.

Authorities said that a section of the dike along a major canal could give way and submerge hundreds of hectares (acres) of land under up to 1.5 meters (5 feet) of water.

"The chance is small" the dike will break, said Yvonne van Mastrigt, chairman of the regional policy team that ordered the evacuation. "But in the interests of security of people and livestock I must take this decision." Continue reading.

See more pictures in Thursday's report on PhotoBlog: Floodwaters rise as Dutch watch and wait

Richel Umel / AFP - Getty Images

A Philippine Air Force helicopter airlifts relief goods to a remote village of Dulag, Iligan City on Dec. 30, 2011.

Agence France Presse reports:

Tens of thousands of flash flood survivors in the Philippines face life in tent cities for months while safe areas to resettle them are sought, top relief officials said on Dec. 26. More than 60,000 people displaced by tropical storm Washi are sheltering in government buildings in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan cities, most of them in schools that reopen after the holidays, civil defence chief Benito Ramos said.

See more images of the effects of Typhoon Washi on PhotoBlog and in the slideshow below.

Slideshow: Typhoon strikes the Philippines

Charlie Saceda / Reuters

Over 1000 people are killed in flash floods, landslides following a tropical storm.

Launch slideshow