India and China are in talks to monitor the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas, a border region crucial to both countries' water supplies, Minister for Environment Jairam Ramesh has said.

"We are talking to the Chinese about monitoring the Himalayan glaciers," Ramesh told the Financial Times.

Helped by cooler, damp weather, firefighters gained the upper hand on a wildfire that has destroyed 77 homes since it was ignited -- apparently by power tools -- nearly a week ago.

Six mountain climbers were killed in an avalanche near the ski resort of Soelden in the Austrian Alps at the weekend, regional police said Sunday.

Witnesses spotted the snowslide in glacier-dotted highlands Saturday and alerted alpine rescuers but they could not reach the scene by helicopter until Sunday due to poor weather, police in the Tirol provincial capital Innsbruck said.

The Obama administration stepped up efforts to reverse a rule adopted late in the Bush administration that makes it easier for companies to deposit debris from mountaintop coal mining near streams. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, left, said that the rule was legally flawed and that he had asked government lawyers to press a federal court to vacate it and send it back for reworking.

The UN Climate Panel says seas could rise by 18-59 cms (7-24 inches) by 2100, without taking account the possible acceleration of a melt of ice sheets in Antarctica or Greenland.

Even a small thaw of Antarctica and Greenland would affect sea levels since together they lock up enough ice to raise sea levels by about 65 metres (215 feet) if they all melted.