More heavy rain hits flood-battered China
Pastor Dale Morgan
More heavy rain hits flood-battered China*
Reuters
Tuesday, July 17, 2007; 8:37 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - Heavy rain across China has killed another five
people and prevented half a million residents displaced by a swollen
river for days from returning home, state media said on Tuesday.
The Huai River, which flows through densely populated areas in central
and eastern China, marked its third flood peak in 10 days on Tuesday,
the official Xinhua news agency said.
Authorities were rushing more tents, food, coal and medicines to more
than 9,000 villagers evacuated to temporary shelters after their homes
in nine "buffer zones" along the Huai were deliberately flooded last
week, Xinhua said.
Half a million residents were displaced in the provinces of Henan, Anhui
and Jiangsu, where hundreds of thousands of people were checking the
soaked and potentially dangerous embankments of the Huai around the
clock as more downpours were forecast.
Five people have been killed by lightening strikes and landslides in
rainstorms in the southwestern province of Sichuan since Monday, Xinhua
said.
Serious street flooding occurred in at least four cities in the
province, where rain and floods had already taken a heavy toll in June
and earlier this month.
In the neighboring municipality of Chongqing, thunderstorms disrupted
some 240 flights on Tuesday, stranding more than 5,000 passengers,
Xinhua said.
The Yangtze River, China's longest, is facing a flood threat as Sichuan,
Chongqing and the nearby provinces of Guizhou and Hubei expect more rain
for the next two days, Xinhua said.
In far-west Xinjiang, torrential rain cut off a major railway line
linking the normally dry region and inland Chinese provinces, Xinhua said.
Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu on Tuesday warned of "a grim situation"
of more downpours, typhoons and tropical storms to hit the country in
the summer.
Floods, landslides and other disasters triggered by rainstorms have
killed 411 people and left 105 missing in China so far this year,
causing economic losses of 37.3 billion yuan ($4.9 billion), state media
said.