China suffers floods, drought and now forest fires*

Reuters
Saturday, August 4, 2007; 1:37 AM

BEIJING (Reuters) - Flash floods in just one county in central China
killed 78 people and left at least 18 missing, state media said on
Saturday, as hundreds of firemen struggled to control forest fires in
the north.

Lushi county, in the west of the province of Henan, was hit by
continuous torrential rain last week. Xinhua news agency said it
triggered flash floods and disrupted transport, power, communications
and other facilities in 10 townships.

The floods destroyed more than 6,000 houses and more than 6,667 hectares
(26 sq miles) of crops.

Hundreds of police and firemen meanwhile were struggling to douse forest
fires in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia, Xinhua said.

"Three fires had been detected by satellite data in the virgin forests
north of the Greater Hinggan Mountain," the region's meteorological
administration was quoted as saying.

Nine people were killed as storms ravaged the eastern province of Anhui
on Thursday and Friday. Five were crushed when a two-storey building
collapsed after being struck by lightning.

Two other cities in the province each reported a death from lightning
strikes.

Lightning has killed at least 403 people in China this year, equivalent
to the total for the whole of 2006, the China Meteorological
Administration said.

Floods across the country have killed more than 700 people this summer,
while millions elsewhere faced shortages of drinking water as high
temperatures exacerbated drought.

In a bizarre but frequent disaster in Zhejiang province in the east, at
least eight people were dead and three missing after a tidal bore swept
away more than 30 people near the mouth of the Qiantang River on the
outskirts of Hangzhou.

The victims and the 22 who were rescued had been either swimming or
walking along a T-shaped levee.

The tides on the Qiantang always attract spectators. Scientists say that
the trumpet-shaped mouth of the river helps form the tidal change, which
can be as high as 3.5 meters.