Thousands homeless as Asia weather misery spreads
Pastor Dale Morgan
Thousands homeless as Asia weather misery spreads*
By Guo Shipeng
Reuters
Friday, July 27, 2007; 7:21 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - Asia's monsoon misery has spread to Nepal, leaving
thousands of people homeless, while more rain is expected to bring
further chaos to China's drowned southwest, where many have already lost
homes, livelihoods and loved ones.
Rescuers dropped relief supplies to hundreds of people in Indonesia's
Sulawesi island on Friday after days of torrential rain triggered
landslides and floods.
About 85 people have died and nearly 8,000 people displaced from their
homes in central Sulawesi. A relief official said authorities had not
been able to pull out many bodies because of a lack of heavy machinery
and equipment.
In China, the toll is far higher, with more than 500 people killed
across this country in floods this summer.
Meteorologists forecast more downpours for the Guangxi region and the
provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan where floods and related
disasters have already taken a heavy toll.
"The possibility of landslides and mud and rock flows is high and
preventive measures should be taken," the centre said on its Web site
(www.nmc.gov.cn).
This year's monsoon has also caused widespread flooding in South Asia
and Indochina, straining disaster relief agencies.
In mountainous Nepal, floods have destroyed crops and disrupted
transport and electricity supplies across the country, officials and
media reports said on Friday.
Around 2,500 houses have been washed away in the Himalayan nation's
southern plains, forcing residents to flee to higher grounds after
week-long heavy rains, local media said.
Officials said floods and landslides have killed about 40 people in
Nepal since June when the annual monsoon rains began.
FLOODWATERS SPREAD
In Bangladesh, monsoon floods continued to spread, inundating vast areas
in 30 of the country's 64 administrative districts, officials said on
Friday.
"Thousands of people have been marooned or displaced. We have opened
flood shelters at several places and are bracing for the worst," said
Ibrahim Khalil, an official in Sirajgan district, one of the worst-hit
areas north of the capital Dhaka.
Across the border in India, incessant rains over the past week have
displaced hundreds of thousands of people in the east and northeast,
destroyed crops and damaged bridges, officials said on Friday.
In the eastern state of Bihar, 21 people have died and hundreds of
thousands of villagers have seen their houses washed away. Road and rail
networks have been disrupted by heavy monsoon rains over the past three
days.
Rivers in the northeast -- including the Brahmaputra that also flows
through Bangladesh -- have burst their banks. Floodwaters have submerged
paddy fields and destroyed houses.
"The situation is grim," said Bharat Chandra Narah, flood control
minister for Assam state.
Weeks of rain in China's mountainous southwest, home to the upper
reaches of the Yangtze river, have made floods peak in Wuhan, capital of
the central province of Hubei, state media said.
Authorities in Hubei had mobilized tens of thousands of people to check
embankments as the Han River, a main tributary that converges with
Yangtze, was also swollen.
But as parts of China battle floods and landslides, others are suffering
from a heatwave and drought.
Temperatures have reached above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees
Fahrenheit) over the past 10 days in seven southern and southeastern
provinces, home to about 200 million people, the National Meteorological
Centre said on Friday.
The heat is set to compound the drought in the rice-growing provinces of
Jiangxi, Hunan and Fujian, where about 1 million residents faced
shortages of drinking water.