Death toll from storms, landslides rises to 28 in southwest China
12/8/2008 16:49
Severe rainstorms have caused flash floods and landslides that killed at
least 28 people and left eight missing in southwest China, the Yunnan provincial
government said today.
The civil affairs bureau estimated that disasters
triggered by tropical storm Kammuri from Thursday to yesterday affected about 1
million people in Yunnan and forced 11,200 people to evacuate their
homes.
Kammuri, the third tropical storm to hit China this year, landed in
the southern province of Guangdong tomorrow, and swept across the Beibu Gulf to
Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region before moving west to Yunnan.
About 2,700
homes in Yunnan were destroyed and 13,000 were damaged, with officials
estimating losses at 549 million yuan (US$80 million), mostly from damaged
crops, the bureau said.
In one of the worst-hit areas, Maguan county in
Yunnan's Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Prefecture, a landslide on Saturday left nine
people dead, two missing and five injured after they were swept up in a
300-meter landslide.
Heavy downpours also damaged sections of the National
Highway 213 in Daguan County with cave-ins and landslides disrupting traffic.
Xinhua
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