Latest reports confirm at least 55 people have been killed and a
further 12 are missing since powerful storms started to lash
southern
China at the end
of May.
Southern provinces including Fujian, Guangdong, Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Chongqing have been beset by floods and
landslides. Such has been the extent of the weather and subsequent
damage that hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to
evacuate their homes.
"At least 378,000 people have been evacuated and relocated
because of the heavy rain," said Li Baojun, an official in charge
of disaster relief with the Ministry of Civil Affairs in a phone
interview.
Fujian Province in east China has been hardest hit with 28
deaths reported since the end of May, he added. Two other
provinces, Guangdong and Guizhou, have reported 11 fatalities
each.
The continuous rain has caused the worst flooding of the past
two decades on the Minjiang River in Fujian Province. It has led to
estimated economic losses of 2.19 billion yuan (US$274 million) in
the province and affected more than 1.6 million people.
Storms will continue to batter the regions because cold and warm
air currents will continue to meet, the Central Meteorological
Office warned yesterday. The Fujian Provincial Meteorological
Station has issued the highest warning possible for the coming
days.
It said the storms would continue for at least 48 hours with
some parts of the province receiving as much as 100 millimeters of
rainfall every 24 hours.
Train and air services were both disrupted by the weather. Six
trains on the Yingtan-Xiamen Railway between Jiangxi and Fujian
provinces were forced to stop in the morning after the track
collapsed in several places due to the rain.
The Nanchang Railway Bureau, which runs the route, sent several
thousand workers to repair the damage. The line was expected to
reopen by 8 PM last night.
(China Daily June 8, 2006)
