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Floods Take Heavy Toll in China
* JUNE 12, 2010, 7:12 A.M. ET
Associated Press
BEIJING – Unusually heavy seasonal flooding in China has killed at least 155 people
and forced more than 1 million to flee as water levels in some areas reached at their highest in
more than a decade, the government reported Saturday. Direct economic losses total
24 billion yuan ($6.5 billion), with large swaths of the country's southeast hit especially hard,
according to the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
A man shouldering a child walks through a flooded street after heavy rain in
Xupu county, Huaihua, central Chinas Hunan province, June 8, 2010.
Virtually all of the country's major rivers were swollen, while water levels in lakes along
the mighty Yangtze River were higher than in 1998, when catastrophic flooding killed about 4,000 people.
The office said 140,000 houses had collapsed and more than 1.3 million people had been moved
to temporary shelter. Overall losses were about four times what they were last year, it said.
Heavy rain has been falling since April, with 13 torrential storms on record already this season.
Flooding strikes along the Yangtze almost every summer, although authorities had claimed that
construction of the massive Three Gorges Dam along the river's upper reaches would help
modulate water levels and prevent major losses.
The office did not say what if any role the dam had played in controlling flood waters,
although it said officials responsible for anti-flooding measures had been ordered to
monitor and adjust levels wherever possible.
—Copyright 2010 Associated Press
* JUNE 12, 2010, 7:12 A.M. ET
Associated Press
BEIJING – Unusually heavy seasonal flooding in China has killed at least 155 people
and forced more than 1 million to flee as water levels in some areas reached at their highest in
more than a decade, the government reported Saturday. Direct economic losses total
24 billion yuan ($6.5 billion), with large swaths of the country's southeast hit especially hard,
according to the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
A man shouldering a child walks through a flooded street after heavy rain in
Xupu county, Huaihua, central Chinas Hunan province, June 8, 2010.
Virtually all of the country's major rivers were swollen, while water levels in lakes along
the mighty Yangtze River were higher than in 1998, when catastrophic flooding killed about 4,000 people.
The office said 140,000 houses had collapsed and more than 1.3 million people had been moved
to temporary shelter. Overall losses were about four times what they were last year, it said.
Heavy rain has been falling since April, with 13 torrential storms on record already this season.
Flooding strikes along the Yangtze almost every summer, although authorities had claimed that
construction of the massive Three Gorges Dam along the river's upper reaches would help
modulate water levels and prevent major losses.
The office did not say what if any role the dam had played in controlling flood waters,
although it said officials responsible for anti-flooding measures had been ordered to
monitor and adjust levels wherever possible.
—Copyright 2010 Associated Press
