Floods have caused seven more deaths in the southern provinces
of China, bringing the toll to 101, a spokesman with the Ministry
of Civil Affairs said on Monday.
Another 26 people are missing as a result of torrential rain
which began lashing the Huaihe River valley, the eastern area of Sichuan Province, and the southern area of Shaanxi Province on June 28.
About 28 million people have been affected and nearly 800,000
people in Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan, Chongqing, and
Shaanxi had been evacuated by 4:00 PM on Monday.
More than 75,500 houses have collapsed and another 295,600 have
been damaged.
Altogether 2.13 million hectares of farmland have been affected,
with agricultural losses estimated to be 3.7 billion yuan (about
US$485 millions) while total direct economic losses could reach 6.9
billion yuan, according to the spokesman.
In Hubei Province, seven people have been killed
in heavy rains and floods; two were swept away by floods, three
were killed after houses collapsed, one was buried in a mudslide,
and another was hit by lightning, said Liu Hui, an official in
charge of disaster relief with the Hubei Provincial Department of
Civil Affairs, on Monday.
In Anhui Province, 11 people have died in the
floods, which have also affected nearly 10 million people, forced
the evacuation of more than 120,000 people, and caused more than
2.3 billion yuan of direct economic losses, Li Hongta, director of
the Anhui Provincial Department of Civil Affairs, told a conference
on Monday.
In the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, the heaviest rainstorms in
the past decade brought up to 385 mm of rainfall to some districts
of the city over the weekend, according to the Nanjing Municipal
Meteorological Station.
Meanwhile, more than 14,000 thunderbolts hit Nanjing between
Saturday morning and Sunday morning, about 10 thunderbolts a
minute, damaging some city infrastructure such as subway power
equipment.
Heavy rains also triggered mountain torrents, landslides, and
mudflows.
A village in Daxian County of Sichuan Province was destroyed
completely by a large landslide at about 9 AM on Saturday, only a
few minutes after more than 2,000 villagers had been moved to
safety. The villagers from Yanmen Village, Qingning Township, have
found temporary shelter in two local primary schools.
(Xinhua News Agency July 10, 2007)