>> hello and well do think to al jazerra. i am morgan radford. and these are the stories we are following right now. >> houses were just crumbling off of the mountain side. >> more homes and lives lost to the record-breaking floods across colorado. tonight the fight to bring hundreds of people to safety. the united states and russia agree on a plan for syria's chemical weapons. we'll have the latest details. and the syrian rebels call ideal a betrayal by the international community. reaction from syria to washington and beyond. ♪

♪ >> we begin in colorado where the flooding has now reached the planes east of the rockies cutting off even more communities. rescue workers are issuing a stern warning to many people in the flooded towns to get out now or face the possibility of being trapped for weeks with no water or even electricity. a fifth person is presumed dead after her house washed away. 1200 people have been rescued by air and by land and hundreds still haven't been heard from in the flood zone, which has grown for an area nearly the size of the entire state of connecticut. earlier colorado's governor toured the flooded areas and described what he saw. >> i counted 55, i think, of significant chunks of missing highway where at least a full lane was missing. many more of where little slivers were gone and we did not go in any comprehensive way.

>> our ash-har has been track being develops from boulder and has more on what the crews are up against. >> reporter: mother nature has been a formidably adversary which week, residents have endured torrential down pours and flash flooding. it's impacted some 15 colorado communities and caused 150 road closures. now say rescue officials, it's time to get out. rescue efforts are in full force. localoss, statelocal, state andl agencies have been coordinating efforts to rescue people trapped to days. the loads are just not blocked but con. >> entire communities we couldn't reach. very, very frustrating situation for our first responders and, you know, all of our staff. >> reporter: boulder municipal airport is the command center for rescues. there is a steady flow of

character coming in and out of the airstrip. most are focused on rescuing isolated mountain communities and searching for those still unaccounted for. a team of at least 400 have a decembered whether carry out search and rescue operations a dozen helicopters are taking to the sky to rescue people. >> the bottom line the process works, get a call, we go out and get them with our aircraft and our resources here. >> reporter: in some of the areas hit the hardest there is no electricity and no cell phone service making it hard to account for dozens of people. whole mountain community have his been cut off by rushing water. >> within an hour the houses were just crumbling off of the mountain side. and people's entire lives, everything that they own just fell off of a mountain in to a river and down. >> reporter: others who escaped with the help of rescue workers are hoping to be reunited with family members who had already gotten out. >> our family and friends have been worried sick i just want to give them the biggest hug in the

world and it makes me realize how fragile life can be. you never know if you are going to be given a tomorrow. >> reporter: and more rain is coming. forecasts indicate at least another day of rainfall that could once again limit the critical aerial operations. the officials say it could be days before the rescue operations are completed and months before people can return to rebuild. the silver lineing in what has s been a very difficult week is forecast prediction that his suggest the rainfall may subside early next week. for now those still stranded need to brace for what could be another bad day of weather. >> three rivers have reached flood stages. the cash river, the south platt river and the big thompson river. we'll check in with our meteorologist rebecca seven son in just a few minutes for more on colorado's rivers and the forecasts for the coming days. and joining me by phone now life is ashley herring, she is a

public information officer with the boulder county office of emergency management. good morning, miss herring, thank you so much for joining us. >> good he more than. >> i understand 1200 people were rescued just today. but since the rain picked up around 9:00 p.m. your time. are the crews even age to get in there? if not what are the flood victims advise today do in the meantime? >> as you said 1200 were rescued during the day by air operations and by ground. and we intend to start rescue operations again tomorrow morning. we typically don't run at night just for safety reasons. however, they will be back up there, weather permitting, rescuing people and bringing them out. >> but if you can't get in there tonight, what are the victims expected to do in the meantime? where do they go? what do they do? >> well, the residents that are up there are in their homes, or family or friends' homes as they have been. the great thing about colorado is neighbors help neighbors and

people take care of each other. and they continue doing that until we are able to get them out and in to a safe place. >> so then hour the evacuation centers holding up in the meantime? are they overflowing? are there even enough resources to really go around? >> our evacuation centers are doing very well. they are not at capacity. i think a lot of people have had places to go with family or friends or other locations. but they've got resources, and everything is doing good in there. >> so, miss herring, after the flooding from katrina, everyone pointed to the levies but after this what is the first thing do you think the government will decide to change? >> i can't speak to what they will change in the future. you know, or rate rite now we are really focusing on safety and assessing what the damage is. there have been mitigation measures taking to prevent

further flooding. >> what are the mitigation measures that you just mentioned? >> for instance, boulder creek, which is the creek that runs through the city of boulder, there was different measures taken, i don't know the exact details, but they did do a lot of work in there. and but that work prevented the flooding through the creek and nba to the city from being a lot worse. >> thank you so much ashley herring public information officer for boulder county. and one day after russia and the united states reach ideal to destroy syria's chemical weapons we are now learning more about that agreement. u.s. secretary of state john kerry and his russian counterpart, sergei lavrov negotiated a plan. it calls for weapons inspectors to be on the ground by november. and syria's entire chemical weapons arsenal is to be secured or destroyed by the middle of next year. the pentagon says it will not change its military position, and jonah hull has more from

geneva. >> reporter: unlikely partners in diplomacy, russia and the united states stay they have agreed a plan to put sear request's chemicasyria'schemica, john kerry said neither side was under any illusion but says the job can be done. >> the world will now expect the assad regime to live up to its public commitments. and as i said at the outset of these negotiations, there can be no games, no room for avoidance, or anything less than full compliance by the assad regime. >> reporter: and what if he doesn't comply? after meetings that went on for three days in geneva, sergei lavrov seems to have achieved russia's goal of watering down the u.s. threat of force. >> in this approach agreed on there is nothing said about the use of force. or about any automatic sanctions. as i said, all violations should be approved to the security

council convincingly and we understand the decision that his we have reach today is only the beginning of the road. >> reporter: these are the key points of u.s.-russian plan. syria must submit a full list of chemical weapon stocks and locations within one week. international inspectors must be allowed to begin their work inside syria by november. the goal is to have eliminated all of syria's chemical weapons by the middle of 2014. neither man could spell out exactly how to achieve such an ambitious objective, and in the midst of an active war zone, details, they said, would follow. and it's also clear that any attempt to enforce this plan should the assad government fail to comply, could become so bogged down at the security council, where, of course, russia has a veto, that any thread of u.s. force has become almost meaningless. the deal in geneva has not gone down well with syria's opposition. >> and we think that the russians and syrian regime are

playing games to waste time and to win time for the criminal regime in damascus. we think that our friends in the western countries and in the united states know exactly the main goal of the russian administration. they are trying to find a solution for the majority regime in du damascus. >> reporter: as syrians continue to die in their sus ens each day by conventional force the promise to remove chemical weapons from the battlefield will not shift the ballot ground, but a wider peace conference just might and that's something now being discussed off the back of the negotiations in geneva, perhaps the greater achievement of these talks has been to bring russia and the united states together on syria. after two and a half years apart. jonah hull, al jazerra, geneva. >> president obama has welcomed the chemical weapons agreement on syria.

but he also warned that if diplomacy fails, the u.s. remains prepared to act. here is what he said in a statement. this framework provides the opportunity for the elimination of syrian chemical weapons and a transparent, expeditious and verifiable manner which could end the threat these weapons pose not only to the syrian people but to the region and the world. the president added that if syria fails to comply, there would be consequences. the pentagon has backed the president saying america is still in position for military strikes s meanwhile, there is criticism for some republican senators to the u.s.-russia deal on syria. john mccain and lindsay graham are calling the agreement meaningless. in a statement the two said the deal would give syria's president time to delay and deceive while the country's civil war just continued. they said it requires a willful suspension of disbelief to see this agreement as anything other than the start of a diplomatic blind alley. and the obama administration is

being led in to it by assad and putin. al jazerra has more on the reactions in washington to the syria chemical weapons agreement. >> reporter: president obama called secretary of state john kerry in geneva to congratulate him on the diplomatic breakthrough after the president received a briefing from his national security advice or susan rice. the president also issued a written statement in which he welcomed these developments, but also warned if diplomacy fails the united states remains prepared to act. those words reinforced by his statement from the pent -- by a statement from the pentagon saying the u.s. force posture in the region remains unchanged at this point in time. there has been mixed reaction from capitol hill, some democratic leaders reacting positively to the framework agreement. but two prominent republican senators, senator john mccain and senator lindsay graham are blasting it, they are saying it is an act of provocative weakness, which

willam boldin iran in its quest for nuclear weapons. they go onto say that vladimir paout spiputin and a a sadr leae u.s. down a blind alley and assad will continues to delay and deceive in, their words. they maintain that this agreement does nothing to address the underlying problem of the conflict in syria, which has cost more than 100,000 lives and created an enormous refugees problem. there will undoubtedly be more reaction, positive and negative, on the sunday talk shows. >> and president obama will shift his focus slightly on monday to focus on the economy. the president will deliver remarks in the rose garden marking the five-year anniversary of the financial crisis and the fall of lehman brothers. obama expected to urge congress to help strengthen the middle class and to not shutdown the government over budget disputes. a huge undertaking off the coast of italy, a ship on its side.

crews will try to will try to put the slit up right more than a year after it toppled overrule. >> reporter: reporting from the southern fill fines where government forces continue to battle it out with national liberation front fighters. >> some cooler weather ahead, but also areas of rain are getting heavier, i will show you where that will impact some flooding next. ♪ ♪

>> in afghanistan officials have confirmed that 27 miners trapped underground have been found dead in a northern province, four members of the rescue teams were badly injured and it is feared

that at least 13 other miners could still be trapped. jane ferguson is live with more. jane. >> reporter: yes, morgan, the officials have confirmed 24 bodies have been recovered from the coal mine in the north of the country. they are also saying that three other people are missing, three other miners, they are not going to presume them dead yet. but this incident did happen yesterday afternoon. now, the information coming from there is patchy, simply because this is such a remote area of afghanistan where it happened. it's about between 20250-kilometers north of kabul, the capital here. and up there, it's a well known mining area, but a lot of these mines are quite rudimentary. a lot of them are very unsafe and these sorts of incidents do happen from time to time. and like you said, morgan, there are also casualty figures coming out of that injuried.

officials are saying 20 have been injured and several of those injured quite severely and those that were injured, we believe were locals who rushed in the site to try to rescue anybody 2r568d inside whe trappy heard the mine collapsed. but they have no sophisticated equipment for rescue. if they are digging with hadn't they were injured as a result. >> wow. locals rush to go the site and digging with their hands, jane answering ferguson live in kabul, thank you so much, janing for joining us this morning. meanwhile soldiers are pushing deep in to rebel held toter try to end a week-long standoff. >> reporter: there are no signs that the clash will be resolved soon. here on the ground more and more human rights services are questioning whether the fill fine military is in fact in control of the situation. seven days since fighting began.

the number of hostages is still undetermined and so too the number of fighters still believed to be hold up in several suburban villages here in the city. the philippine government now puts the number y vaccies at 70,000. that's 10% of the city's population. now, the mlmf is did he panting that the fill fine government implement the 1996 peace agreement it signed with its founder. it is opposing ongoing peace talks with another break way group. the islamic liberation front saying those peace talks are not inclusive and does not represent the needs of the people here in southern philippines. >> the grounded cruise ship has been lying on its sigh for well over a year and now a team is about to attempt to bring it back right side up. it's something that hasn't been tried on a ship this large. and on monday, a team of 500 people will start trying to rollover the massive ship. officials say it will take at least 12 hours to up right the

100,000-ton vessel that you see here live. the operation will cost an estimated $800 million. 33 people died when the liner crashed along the italian coast in january 2012. in one of america's great lakes, laklake erie is being suffocate booed a toxic allergy it's deadly to most animals and having a serious impact on the lake's $10 billion a year tourism industry. john reports. >> reporter: lake erie is choking and expanding under water for us of toxical i didn't is suffocating america's fourth largest great lake. >> it is out of control. and very little is being done. it's toxic to most animals in large concentrations so fish, et cetera, will try to avoid it. and so it's just like a gooey green slime. without much benefit to the natural system. and so it just de decays, et

cetera. it's totally disgusting. >> reporter: fertilizer from north america as richest farmland washed into the water by spring rains has over fed the allergy. each summer it blooms sucking up precious oxygen, closing beaches, reducing fish and a $10 billion a year tourism industry. the green behemoth is growing and growth worse. >> even on the beaches and that, you see it rolling over and it's just a foot deep of allergy. yoalgae, youdidn't see that bef. you say a layer on top and now it's thicker and more seaweed-y like. >> reporter: this is the best fan taj point to get a look at the allergy problem. and from 1500 feet, you can see two years ago algae covered 1/6 of lake erie, this year is the second worst, farmers have worked to reduce runoff but with apartments growing more pr

productive the problem is worse and solutions more ill lose i e. >> i don't think you'll get rid of it 100 percent, we have a lot of run off. >> reporter: eerie was threatened once before in the 1960s when debris, industrial waist and sewage earned it the name america's dead sea. at its most polluted the river that feeds eerie caught fire a now legendary multi billion dollars u.s.-ccanadian clean up saved the lake. but this time there is no obvious solution, bit by bit a growing expanse of green strangles the lake that is its home. john, al jazerra, high over lake erie. ♪ ♪ >> today's high temperatures were a little cooler to the north. but we stayed quite warm in parts of the south as we move in to the day ahead, expect to stay

relatively cool as the sun breaks out of the low clouds, west of the cascades, washington and oregon, and if you look at the color green in the northern portion of the u.s. map, this is outlining where we have a cold front that's going to slowly move through today. now, this cold front has been bringing some rain around minnesota and wyoming and these showers will continue to be around the line of the cold front. in fact as we look at the satellite picture you can see plenty of showers and thunderstorms in the southwest from the afternoon heating and they did not have as much rainfall in them as we certainly had this last week. but today is going to be a different story because after that front passes by, the winds are going change direction and these winds are going to be going right in to the slopes of the rockies, right over where we don't want it to go in the colorado spot area of around big thompson river, major flooding there, also major flooding on the platt river, in fact we have been looking at record flooding in necessary areas from the rainfall that they have had. this is going to happen again

today and these areas of rainfall will be much heavier, we will also have gusty winds and lightning coming in behind this cold front. be prepared for that. the 24 hour forecast showing a fair amount of rain bulls eye in colorado. flights in the central and northern rockies. otherwise the area we are watching for rain is farther south over mexico where we have a tropical storm on one side and a hurricane on the other. it's hurricane number two for the season and bringing in an i can acceptingal amount of rainfall to mexico. in to the mountains, causing mudslides, same story happening on the other side of mexico closer to acapulco, tropical storm manuel, it's going to be tracking up to the north. so we are going to expect some showers in texas. wrapping around the storms from mexico. >> they are called crazy ants and for good reason. we'll show you how these tiny insects are causing some very big problems.

why some critics say the school is setting the kids up for failure. [[voiceover]] no doubt about it,

>> at least 35 people were hurt when a greyhound bus drove an

ohio i want state. the detroit bound bus overturned and slid in to a cornfield near cincinnati. six passengers had to be flown by helicopter to a hospital. and it's still unclear exactly what caused the crash. they arrived in houston from ships from south america a decade ago. they are called crazy ant for his their erratic movement and they are causing damage he is sp*frbl specially iespecially i. a report from thibodeau. >> reporter: these ants are the latest pest problem along gulf coast, they are called crazy aunts or raspberry ant for his the pest control operator who found the piece let houston, they travel in massive clusters and move in erratic patterns, hence the nickname craze. >> i they call in the keyboards and in the phone head society. >> reporter: she moved her louisiana mortgage company to a new office two weeks ago to get away from the apts, but these

fast-traveling insects followed her across the street. jerry howard of the university of new orleans says the raspberry ant came from south america to texas by ship in 2002. and they keep moving. >> they are capable of having hundreds of thousands of workers. it's very difficult to get a bead on a single colony and treat it so that you kill it. >> reporter: dr. howard says the ants establish colonies, not in above-ground mounds but hidden underground. the raspberry crazy ant is in 25 counties in texas. it's at the infestation level in louisiana and parts of mississippi all watt i to the florida panhandle and pest management experts say it's only only going to get worse. >> we have to be very careful where we park, they run across the dashboard. >> reporter: louisiana pest management expert henry leblanc has been battling the raspberry crazy apt for his two years and has seen them take over entire homes and

businesses. >> we talked in the camper it have from the floor, the walls, the ceiling, everything. >> reporter: the ants are annoying, but they don't sting and are harmless to humans. however, they prey on other insects. >> one of the things that people are noticing is that when raspberry crazy ants move in to an area they consume so much food that fire ant colonies starve. >> reporter: howard says the antants can have a devastating effect on bees. the environment impact is a concern, he tell us people to use liquid insecticide on the perimeter of homes and not to pan. >> i can wait until they head to your neighbor's house, i am sure that nobody wants to hear something like that. but unfortunately, these apts are going to be with us for a while. >> reporter: there is no real solution to the problem at this time. but winter should at least slow down the raspberry crazy ant. stephanie boswell, al jazerra,

thibodeau, louisiana. >> i am morgan radford, thanks so much for watching, listening post is up next. >> hello, i'm richard gizbert and i'm at the "listening post." this week the story is changing in chile. 40 years after the coup that brought augusto pinochet to power, the chilean media tell the story in a different way. it was said to be wrong to support the regime in that country. norway gives birth to a new kind of television. will slow tv catch on anywhere else? if you likehe