Floods take huge toll amid losses
11/7/2007 16:59
More than 66.3 million people have been affected by floods this summer,
with 360 people killed and direct economic losses of 24.3 billion yuan,
according to latest figures from the State Flood Control and Drought Relief
Headquarters.
Apart from 217,000 houses wholly or partially destroyed,
more than 4.28 million hectares of grain crops have been hit, with 2.03 million
hectares completely destroyed, Cheng Dianlong, deputy director of the Office of
the headquarters, said in Beijing.
Most of the deaths occurred after
continuous downpours across the Jialing River Valley in southwest China's
Sichuan Province since the beginning of the month which have resulted in floods
in almost all the tributaries of the Jujiang River, a branch of the Jialing, and
triggered severe mountain torrents, mud-rock flows and landslides, he
said.
The ferocious floods battered 40 counties along their route,
submerging the downtown areas of four counties and shattering two small water
dams.
Cheng warned that the situation across the Huaihe River valley is
at a flashpoint with all trunk rivers there reporting dangerously high water
levels. The floods in the Huaihe valley are reminiscent of the grave situation
in 2003.
To cope with the situation, the headquarters has launched a
red-alert emergency reaction scheme, maneuvering upper-reach reservoirs to
retain water and diverting water into other waterways to weaken flood
peaks.
More than half a million people in Henan, Jiangsu and Anhui
provinces along the river have been mobilized to patrol water dams and
riverbanks round-the-clock to detect and prevent dangerous conditions. More than
80,000 residents have been evacuated.
A total of 212 minor risky
conditions have been reported so far in waterways in Henan and
Anhui.
"People are putting up a difficult defense with the water level of
the tributary Hongru River above the safety mark," Cheng said.
Nearly 1.2
million people in Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces
and Chongqing Municipality had been evacuated by 5pm yesterday.
Earlier,
the country's waterway authority ordered the opening of 13 sluices at Wangjiaba,
on the swollen Huaihe River in Anhui, to divert flood waters to the adjacent
Mengwa buffer zone, home to 150,000 people.
The move should bring relief
to more than two million flood-hit residents in Henan, on the upper reaches of
the Huaihe, and alleviate pressure downstream.
Xinhua
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