CHINA’S WEATHER woes continued to spread nationwide yesterday as nearly 100,000 people were evacuated in the country’s north when heavy rains caused the Yalu River to burst its banks and threatened to wash away homes in the region.
Four people in the town of Dandong died, including a couple in their 70s and a mother and son, after their homes were swept away by flash floods, the Xinhua news agency reported.
The area borders North Korea, where more than 5,000 people have been evacuated after flooding from the Yalu River. Local weather stations forecast that 250mm of rain would pelt the Chinese city in the next 24 hours.
This has been a relentless summer of flooding for China, the worst for decades, and it has affected all parts of the country – even the capital Beijing had badly flooded roads over the weekend as the rain fell without pause.
Landslides caused by heavy rains have engulfed whole communities, especially in the west, and more than 2,500 people have perished in the deluge.
Authorities in the northwestern province of Gansu yesterday called off rescue efforts for 330 people still missing after an August 8th mudslide devastated Zhouqu county, killing 1,435 people. The Zhouqu government has banned digging in the debris for fear that recovering corpses buried for two weeks would spread disease.
Over the weekend, flood waters breached a dike between the river and an economic development zone in Dandong, flooding many neighbourhoods.
In North Korea, just across the border, the Korean Central news agency said the floods had devastated houses, public buildings and farmland in more than five villages near Sinuiju, the city opposite Dandong. More than 5,000 people had left the area and taken shelter on higher ground, it said. The country’s leader Kim Jong-il sent the army to the area to help residents.
North Korea with a population of 23 million and a desperately poor economy is much less well geared to deal with this kind of flooding, as a lack of proper infrastructure outside the capital Pyongyang makes for rudimentary rescue efforts at best, prompting fears of a humanitarian disaster.
Dandong is a crucial vantage point for aid and trade between North Korea and China, which is North Korea’s biggest trading partner.