Perilous Times and
Climate Change
300 dead, as China braces for strong tropical storms amid
flood chaos
by Staff Writers
Beijing (AFP) June 21, 2011
China, already hit by torrential downpours that have left more
than 300 dead or missing, braced Tuesday for more rains and wind
as a tropical storm neared its southern coast, weather authorities
said.
The state weather bureau said the storm was brewing at sea off the
coast of Guangdong and Fujian provinces, and was likely to bring
strong winds and heavy rain to the region over the next two days.
Summer downpours have pummelled large swathes of south and central
China this month, triggering deadly floods and landslides that
have forced authorities to evacuate more than 1.6 million people.
The rains have left at least 261 people dead or missing while more
than 36 million have been "affected" one way or another by the
rain and flooding, the civil affairs ministry said Monday.
But the state flood headquarters sounded a positive note Tuesday,
saying the downpours in flood-hit areas were receding.
In the populous eastern province of Zhejiang, where nearly 300,000
people had been evacuated along the Qiantang river as the waterway
threatened to burst its banks and flood towns and villages, the
water fell below warning levels.
The National Meteorological Centre on Tuesday forecast
intermittent showers and thunderstorms in parts of the hard-hit
flooded regions over the next three days, but said heavy rains in
south and central China were unlikely.
China is hit by torrential summer rainfalls every year.
Heavy downpours across large swathes of the country last year
triggered the nation's worst flooding in a decade, leaving more
than 4,300 people dead or missing in floods, landslides and other
rain-related disasters.
One devastating mudslide in the northwestern province of Gansu
killed 1,500 people last August.