© Agence France-Presse
Water Resources Minister Chen Lei warned that at least 10 major rivers in the affected areas were threatening to burst their banks.
"Severe floods triggered by heavy rains will continue to threaten parts of southern China," he said yesterday in remarks posted on his ministry's website.
"There is an increasing possibility that downpours, with enhanced frequency and intensity, will continue to lash regions in the south."
Persistent rains since early June have swamped many areas across a wide swath of China and the state weather bureau today forecast continued downpours during the next three days, with the summer typhoon season approaching.
Authorities have evacuated 292,000 people from along the Qiantang river in Zhejiang province on the east coast after heavy rains caused the river to swell dangerously, official Xinhua news agency said.
Dykes stretching more than 70 kilometres along the Lanjiang River in the Zhejiang city of Lanxi were at risk of bursting and authorities were preparing evacuation plans for area residents, the agency added.
Heavy rains since Saturday have caused the river's water levels to rise sharply, with the Lanjiang reaching its highest mark since 1966 at 34 metres, it said.
The Lanjiang already was overflowing at some points while other sections of dykes were barely holding.
Authorities have put direct economic losses in Zhejiang province alone at $1.13 billion.
State television broadcast footage of the flooded streets of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in the centre of the country.
Newspapers carried photos of crowded boats evacuating stranded villagers and numerous flooded roads. In the east of the country, a 30-metre-deep sinkhole slashed into a highway.
A three-hour downpour dumped a near-record 312 millimetres of rain in Wangmo county in Guizhou province in the southwest, while more than 200 millimetres of rain had fallen over short periods in other regions, Chen added.
More than one million people in eight provinces, regions and municipalities had been evacuated from their homes from June 9 to 16 due to flooding, according to the Beijing Evening News.
A total of more than nine million people have been somehow "affected" by the rain and flooding in Hubei, Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces, it added, without elaborating.
The rains had left at least 168 people dead or missing as of last week, the civil affairs ministry said at the time.
The rains have come as a jarring change for provinces including Hubei, Anhui, and Zhejiang, parts of which had until recently sweltered under the worst drought in decades.
In the southwestern province of Yunnan, five people were killed and another was missing after surging floodwaters swept through a pair of rural villages during a hailstorm yesterday, the agency said.
And in the far-western Xinjiang region, four people were reported missing in flash floods that struck yesterday, Xinhua said.
Source: Australian Associated Press
Reader Comments
to our Newsletter