China floods spread to north after at least 500 die
Pastor Dale Morgan
China floods spread to north after at least 500 die*
Reuters
Thursday, July 26, 2007; 12:46 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - Water levels have risen to critical levels along
vast Chinese rivers and floods have spread to the north while a tornado
hammered 33 villages in the east and two central provinces suffered
drought, media said on Thursday.
More than 500 people have been killed since the summer floods started,
but the disaster has failed to gain world attention surrounding floods
in England in which three deaths have been reported.
Four people died in the normally arid northwestern province of Gansu and
the neighboring frontier region of Xinjiang this week, Xinhua news
agency said.
Two farmers in Xinjiang's Huocheng county were swept away by flood water
triggered by heavy rain that started on Tuesday, Xinhua said.
"At least 48 herdsmen and 13,000 goats have been stranded for nearly two
days in a mountainous area in northwestern Xinjiang after a landslide
cut off their path," it said.
On Wednesday, a tornado swept across a 10 km (six miles) path through 33
villages in Yinshang county in the dirt-poor eastern province of Anhui.
The villages were the among worst hit in weeks of serious flooding along
the swollen Huai River which had displaced hundreds of thousands of
residents, Xinhua said.
"It is like adding frost to the snow," it said.
State television showed pictures of uprooted trees, downed electricity
poles and houses without roofs by the tornado.
Nearly 100,000 trees were uprooted or severed and large areas of crops
were destroyed, causing economic losses of 22 million yuan ($2.9
million), the China Youth Daily said.
There have been no reports of casualties from the tornado, which hit in
the early morning, but water levels along the Huai remained at alarming
levels.
In the southwestern province of Guizhou, at least one person died and
645,000 people were affected by rainstorms this week, Xinhua said.
Water levels of two rivers in the scenic Xiangxi area in the central
province of Hunan rose to up to seven meters above danger levels after
days of heavy rain, prompting dams to open flood gates, the official
news agency said.
About 26,000 people in central Hubei have been mobilized to check
embankments as flood peaks on the Yangtze River, China's longest, and
its main tributary the Han River, approached the provincial capital, Wuhan.
More rain is forecast for large swathes of southwest and northwest China
on Thursday, the National Meteorological Centre said on its Web site
(www.nmc.gov.cn).
Weeks of high temperatures were set to continue in the south and
southeast. Temperatures in the eastern provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangxi
could hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), the centre said.
And more than 300,000 people in the central province of Jiangxi and
about half a million in neighboring Hunan faced a shortage of drinking
water because of drought, Xinhua said.
The temperature in the financial hub, Shanghai, reached 37.7 degrees
Celsius on Wednesday and some office workers had been urged to wear
shorts and T-shirts on Friday to save energy.