The death toll from torrential rains in southern China continues to mount. From Xinhua:
Floods in China have killed 377 people this year, as of Friday, and left 142 others missing, the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said Friday in a statement on its website.
Further, flooding in 2010 has affected 64.57 million people in China’s 22 provinces, municipalities and regions, as well as inundating about 4 million hectares of crops, the statement said.
A total of 4.35 million people have been evacuated due to the flood waters, which destroyed 368,000 homes and caused economic losses reaching 75.6 billion yuan (11.13 billion U.S. dollars), according to the statement.
Heavy rains created a breach in the Changkai Dyke. From Reuters:
The Fu River in Jiangxi province first burst through the protective Changkai Dyke late on Monday after days of torrential rain, threatening areas near the small city of Fuzhou.
The river punched through the embankment again early on Wednesday, the official Xinhua news agency said. Residents whose homes were threatened had already been evacuated at night.
Troops in orange vests were using boats to search for stranded residents and take them to safety.
