clipped from: www.telegraph.co.uk |
China: dozens dead in record floods Floods in southern China have killed at least 55 people and forced thousands more to evacuate their homes, official state media has reported.
The Xinhua news agency told how nine hours of torrential rain caused a series of landslides in Wuzhou, a city in the Guangxi region. Around 15,000 people had to leave the city as nearly 2,000 houses collapsed. In Fujian province, also in the south, the bank of a rain-swollen river collapsed yesterday morning and flooded 11 villages while thousands of residents were still asleep, Xinhua said. The disasters come amid what the government says is the worst summer flooding in parts of China in three decades. More heavy rain has been predicted for the next two days in southern China, and local governments are preparing for mudslides and landslides. Across southern China, at least 378,000 people have already been asked to leave the provinces of Fujian, Guangdong and Guizhou, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said. China suffers hundreds of flood deaths each year during the summer monsoon season, although this year's first storm arrived unusually early. Rivers overflow and water rushes down mountains stripped of trees by decades of farming and logging, often causing deadly landslides.
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