More people drown in floods
- Source: Global Times
- [02:52 July 13 2010]
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Clouds gather over Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province Monday afternoon, suggesting the arrival of a new storm. Heavy rain in recent days has flooded provinces along the Yangtze River area including Zhejiang. Photo: CFP
By Fu Wen
Thirty-nine people in 10 provinces have drowned in floods along the Yangtze River since Thursday, and the relentless downpours have posed new dangers for 15.63 million people living in the river valley as China enters a major flood season, according to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
Direct economic losses due to flooding hit 8.7 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) and the floodwaters destroyed 810,000 hectares of crops, the China News Service reported Monday.
The flood control and drought relief authority said Monday that many rivers and lakes along the Yangtze valley are at flood levels as the water keeps rising in continuous rainstorms.
In Anqing, East China's Anhui Province, about 4,200 residents were forced to leave their homes as heavy rainstorms flooded Dashahe River in the outskirts of the city and several levees were breached, the Xinhua News Agency reported Monday.
On Sunday morning, a heavy rainstorm pounded Tongcheng, a city under the administration of Anqing, and the water level of the Dashahe River rose by 3.52 meters within two hours. The heaviest rainfall occurred between 6:30 am and 8:30 am, and rose higher than 310 millimeters in some areas.
Monday, 24 hours of relentless rainfall affected the lives of 112,000 rural residents along the riverbanks.
Some 6,300 hectares of farmland were flooded, including large vegetable fields.
The flooding raised vegetable prices in Anqing by 30 percent on average and some of the vegetables were twice as expensive than they were before the rains came, the China National Radio reported Monday.
"The dikes along the Dashahe River are basically made of sand as neighboring areas do not produce soil. The sand banks are too fragile to stop an emergency flood," Hong Shendong, director of the dispatch division at the Anqing Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, told the Global Times Monday.
Local government mobilized some 300-armed police and 200 migrant workers to try to hold back the floodwaters in Shahebu.
"The flood is even bigger than during the same period in 1998," Hong added.
One of the worst floods hit 29 provinces in China, including Anhui Province, during the summer of 1998, which affected the lives of 100 million people nationwide and flooded more than 20 million hectares of land, people.com.cn reported.
No casualties were reported in Tongcheng as of late Monday.
While the heavy rainstorm continued in Tongcheng, authorities were trying to repair the broken levees.
"The government is organizing a human force to fix a dike in Shuanggang, which was breached by floods on Sunday, and they are ready to plug holes in the dike as soon as the flood waters recede," Zhang Zhijun, a publicity official with the Tongcheng government, told the Global Times Monday.
The National Meteorological Center continued its orange rainstorm alert at 10 am Monday, with flood warnings for large areas of the Yangtze River. The weather forecasters warned that the second tropical storm of this year, nicknamed Conson, would churn up the South China Sea on Wednesday with strong winds.
