Perilous Times and Climate Change
1.3 million flee as China flooding kills 155
The Associated Press
Saturday, June 12, 2010; 5:45 AM
BEIJING -- Unusually heavy seasonal flooding in China has killed at
least 155 people and forced more than 1 million to flee as water levels
in some areas reached at their highest in more than a decade, the
government reported Saturday.
Direct economic losses total 24 billion yuan ($6.5 billion), with large
swaths of the country's southeast hit especially hard, according to the
Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
Virtually all of the country's major rivers were swollen, while water
levels in lakes along the mighty Yangtze River were higher than in
1998, when catastrophic flooding killed about 4,000 people.
The office said 140,000 houses had collapsed and more than 1.3 million
people had been moved to temporary shelter. Overall losses were about
four times what they were last year, it said. Heavy rain has been
falling since April, with 13 torrential storms on record already this
season.
Flooding strikes along the Yangtze almost every summer, although
authorities had claimed that construction of the massive Three Gorges
Dam along the river's upper reaches would help modulate water levels
and prevent major losses.
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The office did not say what if any role the dam had played in
controlling flood waters, although it said officials responsible for
anti-flooding measures had been ordered to monitor and adjust levels
wherever possible.