The nationwide death toll from this summer's flash floods has risen to 381, with 75 percent of the deaths caused by mountain torrents, mudflows and landslides.
As of Wednesday, 98 people remained missing in the areas hit hardest by recent storms and floods, while damage caused by the disasters amounted to 14.9 billion yuan (US$1.8 billion), according to Wednesday's report by the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
So far this week, floods, waterlogging and resulting hazards have affected more than 45.7 million people across China and toppled 197,000 homes. More than 3 million hectares of crops have been inundated, and grain yields in more than half of them will be reduced by 30 percent or more.
Premier Wen Jiabao has urged local governments to fight flooding and focus on preventing devastating weather-related hazards, promote relief work and guard against any possible outbreaks of epidemic diseases in flood-stricken areas.
For the past two days, downpours have pounded south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and central China's Hunan and Hubei provinces, along the rain-swollen Yangtze River.
Since early this week, rain has flooded nine counties and put 18 reservoirs at risk in Hunan.
Nine counties were ravaged by torrential rains that hit the northwestern part of the province from Monday to Tuesday. Nearly 110,000 people were forced to move to higher ground.
More than 200 hydrological stations in Hunan reported rain. Sixty-five measured more than 50 millimeters between Monday and Tuesday, 22 had more than 100 millimeters and two had more than 200 millimeters.
Also on Tuesday, two people were killed and three others seriously injured in a landslide in southwest China's Yunnan Province.
Another 53 people were reported missing after a landslide in the province's Dai-Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture.
By Tuesday, 107 people had died as a result of weather, including fog, lightning and hail and another 408 were injured throughout the country, said Zhang Guocai, of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), during a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.
"More attention has to be paid to flooding and waterlogging triggered by the intensive downpours that accompany typhoons," Zhang said.
Hunan Province's Chenxi County witnessed one of its worst floods in a hundred years when the crest of the Ruan River, the third largest branch of the Yangtze, entered the county in the early morning hours on Wednesday.
Peaking at 125.9 meters -- 5.9 meters above the warning line -- and traveling at 25,500 cubic meters per second, the floodwaters hit the county at 2:00 AM and left 445,000 local people badly affected, including 135,000 homeless, more than 80 injured and two missing. The direct loss is estimated at 425 million yuan (US$51.2 million).
The people left homeless and property worth 85 million yuan (US$10.2 million) have been moved to safer areas.
The local government reports that 200,000 yuan (US$24,096) in flood prevention funds, 250 rescue vehicles, 35 rescue boats, 10,000 public servants and more than 200,000 local residents were mobilized to fight the flood.
On Wednesday in Yunnan, at least three gasoline station employees were buried in a mudslide as they slept in a dormitory next to the station. A 10-member search and rescue team was dispatched to the site.
Since June, precipitation recorded in central and south China has been 20 to 50 percent higher than average, the CMA's Zhang said. Rainfall exceeded 600 millimeters in parts of Hubei and Hunan provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Major rainfall is now headed to north and northeast China and the region may see precipitation ranging from 30 to 60 millimeters, climbing as high as 120 millimeters in a few areas, Zhang predicted.
In August, rainfall will also be higher than average in parts of north and northeast China and upstream areas on the Yellow River. Zhang said, "More disastrous flooding or waterlogging is likely to occur."
Three typhoons are expected to hit China next month.
(Xinhua News Agency, China Daily July 22, 2004)
