Floods in China killed more than 1,100 people this summer despite stronger relief efforts that helped to limit damage and loss of life, officials said today.
Torrential rain has inundated large swathes of China's east, south and southwest since June despite a smaller number of typhoons and tropical storms so far this year, while a prolonged heatwave and drought have afflicted several eastern provinces.
Rescuers carry a victim released from a collapsed building following a rainstorm in Yibin, southwest China. Seventeen people were killed and three others missing as torrential rains pounded Sichuan. Pic: Reuters.
The flood death toll of 1,138, last updated yesterday, was down about 50 per cent from the average for the same period of previous years, Vice Minister of Water Resources E Jingping said.
Xinhua News Agency reported that 17 people were killed and three others missing as torrential rains pounded southwest China's Sichuan Province since last Wednesday.
Improved early warning and evacuation, stronger dykes and timely flood water diversion had reduced human losses and damage to property, Minister of Water Resources Chen Lei said.
But 310 million Chinese, mostly peasants in the vast and vulnerable countryside where harvests and houses were destroyed, have been affected by natural disasters so far this year.
The Huai River, China's third longest, suffered its worst flood since 1954 in July, displacing hundreds of thousands of wheat farmers for nearly a month.
The cities of Chongqing in the southwest and Jinan in the north were also hit by the most intensive downpours in history, causing dozens of deaths in street flooding and prompting Chinese media to question the government's response.
The flood season was not over yet and still posed a grave threat, while 37,000 of China's 85,000 dams had "ailments and dangers", Mr Chen warned.