Chinese flooding leaves 21 dead
Pastor Dale Morgan
Chinese flooding leaves 21 dead*
Heavy rains in south-western China have caused flash floods and
mudslides, killing at least 21 people, the official Xinhua news agency
has said.
Another 11 people remain missing after fierce weather in Sichuan
province over the past two days.
Some 112,000 people have been evacuated from their homes, Xinhua reported.
Elsewhere, more than 1.6 million people in the northern province of
Gansu are facing water shortages because of severe conditions in the region.
Drought-affected areas have received little or no rainfall in the past
two months, officials said.
China has suffered increasingly severe periods of extreme weather in
recent years, including floods, drought and powerful typhoons.
Authorities announced recently that the country is likely to be hit by
more extreme weather during 2007 than at any time in the past decade.
They blame the changing weather patterns on climate change, a view at
least partly backed up by meteorologists.