An entire year's worth of rain falls on city in only three days

Monterrey, Mexico, was recovering from Hurricane Alex after flooding destroyed homes, damaged bridges and left six people dead. More than a year's worth of rainfall fell in the space of three days, flooding the normally dry Santa Catarina riverbed near the city.

More than 1,000 soldiers have been dispatched to Nuevo Leon state to help with relief efforts. Alex earlier battered Central America, causing flooding and rock-slides that killed two people in Guatemala and two in El Salvador. The hurricane also disrupted clean-up efforts around the Deepwater oil spill, with skimming operations suspended due to rough seas. The hurricane season is predicted to be unusually active in 2010, after a relative lull in 2009.