Floods, landslides and the strongest typhoon to hit in a quarter
of a century have killed at least 86 people in China with many
others still missing, residents and local officials said on
Thursday.
About 20,000 people were keeping vigil round the clock on the
swollen Weihe river in case it breached flood defences, a local
official said. The Weihe, the Yellow River's biggest tributary, has
already burst its banks in five places in the northwestern province
of Shaanxi.
Resulting floods and landslips have killed 38 people and 34 were
missing, he said. About 180,000 people have been evacuated to
higher ground since the heavy rains began a week ago.
About 25,000 people were laying sandbags along the banks, he
said.
"The river's at its highest level ever," a flood control
official told reporters by telephone. "There's 34 missing people
and little hope of finding them alive."
Floods have also killed at least 10 people in the neighbouring
province of Henan.
In southern Guangdong, advertising billboards flew through the
air, trees and power poles were ripped from the ground and streets
flooded as a typhoon swept through Tuesday and Wednesday after
narrowly missing Hong Kong.
Typhoon Dujuan, the strongest storm to hit the Pearl River delta
since 1979, killed 38 people. Many of the victims died on a
Shenzhen construction site where a half-finished building
collapsed.
Shenzhen, Huizhou, Shanwei and Shantou in eastern Guangdong were
the hardest hit.
About 1,000 people had been injured, and local television said
30 percent of trees along the coast in the path of the storm had
been ripped up by the roots.
The direct economic losses caused by the typhoon are set at more
than two billion yuan (US$242 million).
(China Daily September 4, 2003)
