At least 75 people in northern China have died or gone missing since Monday in some of the worst flooding in years, the government said Thursday.
The figures released by the Civil Affairs Ministry come amid continuing
heavy downpours that have caused havoc across usually dry regions,
including the capital Beijing. Already, 576 people have been recorded as
dead or missing nationwide in the first half of the year.
Beijing has been hit by constant rain since Tuesday that has forced the
cancellation of hundreds of flights and trains and flooded city streets.
The rain has also threatened embankments along rivers in central China,
with authorities mobilizing troops and heavy equipment to fill the
gaps.
Tens of thousands have been evacuated from flood-hit areas and direct
economic losses have risen into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
President Xi Jinping
on Wednesday warned the country to be prepared for more hardship to
come and said officials found negligent in their duties would be
severely punished.
China's south has also been hit by floods that strike annually during
the monsoon season that began in May, but this rainy season has been
particularly wet. Water levels in some major rivers have exceeded those
of 1998, when the worst floods in recent years killed 4,150 people, most
of them along the Yangtze River, China's mightiest.
Authorities this year have already taken emergency measures, including discharging water from the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze.
abcnews.com
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