Raging Floods, Landslides kill dozens in China
Pastor Dale Morgan
Raging Floods, Landslides kill dozens in China*
Nearly 600,000 people reported homeless; 48,000 homes said destroyed
MSNBC News Services
Updated: 9:18 a.m. PT June 11, 2007
BEIJING - Landslides and flooding unleashed by heavy rains have killed
at least 66 people in China and left nearly 600,000 homeless with more
heavy rain expected this week, state media reported Monday.
"We've got experience of floods, but I've never known a flood like
this," Zhong Shizhan, a resident of Mei county in Guangdong province,
was quoted as saying by the Southern Metropolis Daily.
The National Meteorological Center forecast heavy rain south of the
Yangtze, China's longest river, and continued downpours in the south of
the country until Thursday.
Flooding had destroyed 48,000 houses and damaged 94,000 in the region
and forced the evacuation of about 591,000 people, the China Daily said.
Nearly 9 million people had been affected. Twelve people were missing.
The highest death toll was in southeastern Guangdong province, where 18
people were killed and four were missing since the rains started
Thursday, the Xinhua News Agency said. More than 72,000 people were
evacuated from their homes there.
The populous province is the heart of China’s export-driven light
manufacturing industries, but there was no word of any damage to
factories or shipping facilities.
Deaths and damage were reported throughout southern China and the
northwest. Torrential rains, mudslides and floods have also hit Hunan,
Guangxi, Guizhou, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces, where at least 48 people
died, Xinhua said.
China suffers deaths and damage every summer when seasonal rains cause
flash floods.
Big cities are sheltered by giant dikes but deaths are reported in farm
communities that lack protection from rising rivers, and in mountain
towns that are hit by flash floods.
Millions of people in central and southern China live on reclaimed,
flood-prone farmland.
China's typhoon season is just getting under way in the south. Experts
last month warned that the Yangtze could flood badly this year for the
first time since 1998 when flooding killed more than 3,000 people.
Flooding and typhoons killed 2,704 people last year, according to the
China Meteorological Administration. That was the second-deadliest year
on record after 1998, when summer flooding claimed 4,150 lives.
In Guangxi, the floods killed 13 people and destroyed hundreds of homes,
Xinhua reported. The province is a poor, mountainous region to
Guangdong’s west.
Thousands of students who were taking national university entrance exams
in Guangxi had to move to emergency centers after school buildings were
flooded, the agency reported.
Rains in Guangxi destroyed 29 reservoirs and forced 59 factories to
suspend production, Xinhua said, citing Chen Rundong, deputy director of
the regional flood control office.
Other parts of the country were reeling from intense heat, with the
northeastern province of Jilin seeing temperatures soar above 104
degrees Fahrenheit, Xinhua news agency reported.