Floods claim 57 lives as rain wreaks havoc
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China.org.cn, China Daily, September 20, 2011
By Monday afternoon, rain-triggered floods and landslides had left at least 57 people dead and 29 missing around the nation, causing the central government to launch emergency response plans.
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Residents in Guang'an city, southwest China's Sichuan Province, are ferried to safety on Monday after torrential rains flooded their homes. [China News Service] |
More than 12 million people have been affected by the latest round of heavy rains, while strong flooding has forced more than 1.21 million people to evacuate in Henan, Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
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The flood is expected to be the worst in Sichuan since records began in 1847. Nearly 900,000 people in the province have been evacuated.
The rain stopped in Bazhong in Sichuan on Monday morning. It left 13 people dead, 10 missing and 156 injured in the city, said Li Minggang, chief of the Bazhong government's information office.
The flood affected more than 1.3 million people in the city, with 250,000 being evacuated, Li said.
Su Kunming, a resident in the old urban area of Guang'an, one of the worst-hit regions in Sichuan, said that before the flood soldiers had helped residents move their belongings.
Flood control experts estimated that all major streets in Guang'an will be submerged and floodwaters could be 10 meters deep in some areas, the local government said.
Zhang Dasheng, a migrant worker in Beijing, who comes from Bazhong, was told by his relatives on Sunday that his two children - 10 and 12 years old - as well as his mother and three other people were trapped on top of a six-story building in his hometown.
"We had to pray and hoped that God stopped the rain," Zhang told Beijing Times on Sunday.
Pan Chuanyong, one of Zhang's relatives trapped on the building, said on Sunday that they had nothing to eat and were shivering in the cold weather, according to a report in Monday's edition of West China Metropolis Daily.
The local publicity department said that all of the six people, including Zhang's family members, were rescued on Monday.
Zhu Zhisheng, deputy mayor of Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province, said on Monday afternoon that a landslide at about 2 pm on Saturday sent almost 100,000 cubic meters of rock and mud sliding down a mountain in Baqiao, a suburban district of Xi'an.
The landslide buried a brick factory as well as the factory's dormitory and destroyed part of a nearby ceramics plant, leaving 17 people dead and at least 15 missing, Zhu said.
The rain also caused State Highway 210 to be blocked by falling stones and landslides in Qinling region in Shaanxi. A mudslide in Shaanxi partly destroyed the slope protection of the Nanjing-Xi'an railway, but this was fixed by Monday morning, according to China Meteorological Administration.
The persistent rain in Shaanxi will continue for days and the water level in the local Weihe and Hanjiang rivers is still rising, the administration said on Monday.
The rainy weather in Southwest and Northwest China, which started in August, has delayed the grain harvest in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Henan provinces.
According to figures from the Henan civil affairs authorities, at least six people were reported dead by Monday afternoon, and the heavy rains had affected 49 counties in 14 cities since Sept 10, forcing 15,200 residents to be evacuated.
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