China rushes to fix dams, 10,000 square miles flooded
Pastor Dale Morgan
China rushes to fix dams, 10,000 square miles flooded*
By John Ruwitch
Reuters
Wednesday, June 18, 2008; 4:23 AM
FENGKOU, China (Reuters) - China has posted hundreds of police and
rescue officials to shore up dams threatening to burst under torrential
rain that has already flooded 10,000 square miles of crops and homes.
The rain and floods, concentrated in the southern industrial hub of
Guangdong, have killed at least 171 people and left 52 missing since the
start of the annual flood season and forecasters have warned of more
downpours in coming days.
More than 750 government officials and police had been sent to conduct
rescue work for six reservoirs in "danger of bursting" in southern
Guangxi region, Xinhua news agency said.
Some 3,000 people had already been evacuated downstream from a reservoir
with a capacity of 1.8 million cubic meters, the agency said.
More than 1.66 million people have been evacuated across nine provinces
and regions in southern China since major flooding started 11 days ago.
Families were perched on the roofs of homes flooded up to the
first-floor ceiling, enduring the latest in a series of disasters in
Beijing's Olympic year after record snowstorms in January and February
and the devastating May 12 earthquake.
Rain-triggered floods have toppled 134,000 houses, damaged or destroyed
2.52 million hectares (10,000 square miles) of crops and caused economic
losses of 27.7 billion yuan ($4 billion).
China's meteorological bureau forecast storms in western Guangdong and
southern Guangxi and warned authorities to halt outdoor work and guard
against damaged electric cables.
"Be on guard for disasters including mountain flooding, landslides and
mudslides," the National Meteorological Bureau said on its website.
Water levels in the swollen Xijiang and Beijiang rivers in Guangdong
were subsiding slowly, but rain forecast over the next three days would
provide renewed risk of flooding, Xinhua said.
Heavy rains forecast for neighboring Fujian province could also "cause
geological disasters."
Provincial water authorities earlier reported the Pearl River Delta, a
major exporting base, had suffered its greatest flooding in 50 years.
Residents of Hekou, a village on the outskirts of Pearl River Delta town
Sanshui, waded chest-high through streets turned into coffee-coloured
canals.
"We carried everything upstairs -- a cabinet, the TV, the refrigerator,
the motorcycle," said Wu, who sells fish from the river for a living.
"There's nothing else you can do."
China suffers floods, droughts and other disasters across its huge
landmass every year. Economists have said the cost of this year's
flooding appears no greater than in previous years.
"The Sichuan earthquake was a natural disaster," said a resigned Zhang
Shang, 59, as he rowed his family across the flood waters in Fengkou, a
town of about 80,000 in Guangdong near the border with Guangxi. "This is
not."
But analysts have warned sustained rains could reduce sugar production
in Guangxi, which accounts for 60 percent of the country's crop.
Rain has also been forecast for quake-hit areas of Sichuan, where
officials have warned of renewed threats of epidemics as summer
temperatures rise.
The 7.9 magnitude quake killed more than 69,000 people and left about
five million homeless.
($1=6.891 yuan)
(Additional reporting by Ian Ransom in Beijing; Editing by Nick Macfie)