Rescuers have had to amputate limbs to free survivors from collapsed buildings in earthquake-hit Christchurch, police in New Zealand said this morning, estimating about 100 people remained trapped in the rubble. "There is incredible carnage right throughout the city," Superintendent Gibson told Radio New Zealand. "There are bodies littering the streets, they are trapped in cars and crushed under rubble where they are clearly deceased. Our focus has turned on the living."

……

The total number of Catholics worldwide is up 1.3% from last year, bringing the total number to 1.181 billion. These figures were published in the 2011 Pontifical Yearbook. Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone and Subsitute for General Affairs Archbishop Fernando Filoni, two of the pope's principal collaborators, approached the Holy Father with the figures

A powerful earthquake has struck the New Zealand city of Christchurch bringing down buildings and buckling roads, with reports deaths and serious injuries. Please keep those affected in your prayers as the country waits to hear of the number of deaths.

……

The 2011 Pontifical Yearbook was presented this morning to Benedict XVI by the offices of the Secretariat of State. The statistics, referring to 2009, reveal 1.18 billion faithful baptized in the world today, an increase of 15 million compared to 2008. 

……

Torrential rains, floods and landslides have been disrupting the lives of 1,243,478 people, 362,821 households belonging to 17 districts in Sri Lanka for days. It is a situation that threatens to cripple the entire country. And Caritas, the social arm of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka, is at the forefront in the process of assistance and relief to the needy.

……

Winter snow storms are ravaging America! While snow from a massive winter storm system continued to fall Wednesday night in parts of the Northeast, millions in the Midwest were left to dig themselves out, brave dangerously frigid temperatures and cope with sporadic power outages.

……

More destructive, more powerful and more terrifying than Cyclone Tracy or Cyclone Larry, Cyclone Yasi has pummelled the North Queensland Coast. But as day broke this morning, residents in Airlie Beach, Tully, Innisfail, Mission Beach, Cairns, Townsville and Mackay breathed a tentative sign of relief that their long night of terror was almost over.

Please pray for Queensland! Cyclone Yasi, which the Queensland Premier has labelled as the biggest disaster Australia has ever seen, is fast approaching the homes of thousands of Australians. It is too late for residents to evacute, all they can do to prepare, wait and pray.

……

Tropical cyclone Yasi has been upgraded to category five as it nears the north Queensland coast. "The impact is likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations," the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said on its website.

……

One year after the anniversary of the earthquake that devastated the Caribbean nation of Haiti, the situation there has not improved that much. The Spanish documentary "Sueños de Haití" or "Dreams of Haiti," takes us back to the first weeks after the natural disaster that left the country in ruins.