Rain, floods continue to batter south China
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Xinhua, June 18, 2011
Heavy rain and ensuing floods continue to batter southern China on Saturday, killing eight people in the mountainous Guizhou Province.
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 Heavy rain and ensuing floods hit Hubei Province in mid June, forcing the evacuation of thousands. |
The southwestern Guizhou Province was battered by heavy rain. In the worst-hit Meitan county, precipitation totaled 203.2 mm in the 24 hours ending at 8 a.m. Saturday.
The local government said eight people have died in rain-triggered disasters, including two killed by lightning strikes.
Among the dead were two students in Wuchuan County who were washed away by mountain torrents on their way home Friday night, the provincial flood control and drought prevention office said in a press release.
Downpours that began Friday, the third round of rainfall since the flood season began on June 9, battered at least 10 southern provinces, swelling rivers and causing landslides that forced the evacuation of thousands.
In Shiyan City of central Hubei Province, at least 4,000 were evacuated after a landslide of 10,000 cubic meters of rock and sludge threatened a village Friday night, the local government said.
It was the second landslide to hit Fangxian County this week.
Six people went missing in the previous landslide on Tuesday, when huge rocks rained down the mountains and formed a 500-meter long, 100-meter wide barrier lake that threatened to burst and sweep the downstream villages.
Water conservancy experts launched three blasts Wednesday hoping to remove the dangerous lake, but only succeeded in reducing its water level and discharging about 700,000 cubic meters of water.
Friday's downpour, however, swelled the lake again.
At 8 a.m. Saturday, the lake's water storage was 1.35 million cubic meters, compared with 1.3 million cubic meters on Wednesday.
The local government has launched round-the-clock monitoring of the lake and is ready to evacuate more people in case of further risks, said Zhou Ji, mayor of Shiyan City.
The weather bureau has forecast more rain in the city on Saturday.
Three rounds of torrential rain have battered Hubei since the rainy season began on June 9, with the latest round beginning Friday.
Thirty counties reported more than 50 mm of rainfall in the past 24 hours and eight of them received over 100 mm of precipitation, the local weather bureau said Saturday.
In the worst-hit Hefeng County in southwestern Hubei, precipitation reached 182 mm in the 24 hours from 8 a.m. Friday to 8 a.m. Saturday.
The provincial capital Wuhan is also on flood alert Saturday as the water level in the Yangtze River keeps rising.
Latest hydrological data showed the Yangtze water level in Wuhan was 21.57 meters at 10 a.m., compared to last month's average of 15.25 meters.
Wuhan's hydrological bureau said the water level is still rising at an average of 0.3 meter daily.
Liujiang County in the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region closed 25 schools on Thursday for safety considerations, as rain and floods cut off power and water supplies and posed risks for landslides and mud-rock flows.
"Most of these schools reopened on Friday and no casualties were reported," said Li Qingxian, spokesman with the regional education bureau.
Downpours hit most parts of Guangxi Friday and Saturday, and the local government has sounded alarms for floods, mountain torrents and geological disaster.
The downpour had eased a seven-month drought in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
Water level in China's largest freshwater lake, Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province, reached 16.22 meters on Saturday, 0.21 meter higher than normal.
Meanwhile, the lake has swollen to 3,049 square kilometers, compared with 1,809 square km on June 9.
During the worst spring drought in six decades, the lake had shrunken to 400 square km in late May, the local government said.
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