Death toll from southeastern China flooding rises to 10

BEIJING (AFP) Sep 23, 2003
Ten people have been confirmed dead and nine were still missing after heavy flooding caused by torrential rains in a mountainous county of southeastern China's Fujian province, state press said Tuesday.

The floods have killed at least 10 people in Yongtai county since late Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported.

Rescue workers are continuing to search for the missing.

Torrential rain has pelted the towns of Songkou and Changqing since late Saturday, leading to flooding which has affected 1,420 local residents. Eighty houses have been destroyed and another 100 damaged.

A total of 1,000 hectares of crops have been submerged.

Some 1,911 people have died in natural disasters in China so far this year, with summer flooding accounting for a large proportion of the fatalities, Xinhua reported earlier.

Floods, droughts, earthquakes and storms have caused more than 18 billion dollars in direct losses to the economy this year, with a total of 6.31 million people evacuated from disaster zones, according to the Civil Affairs Ministry.

TERRA.WIRE