Hurricane Melissa, stronger than Hurricane Katrina, makes history as strongest to ever hit Jamaica

The Amazon Rainforest: The Amazon Rainforest is one of the most extraordinary and vital ecosystems on the planet. Spanning across nine South American countries, with nearly sixty percent located in Brazil, it is the largest tropical rainforest in the world. Covering an area of approximately 6.7 million square kilometers, it is roughly the size of the contiguous United States. At its heart flows the Amazon River, the largest river by volume on Earth, discharging more freshwater into the ocean tha