23.85 Million People Affected as Floods Batter South China since July
Image Credits: Associated Press of Pakistan
BEIJING, July 20 (APP): As many as 31 people have died or are missing and 23.85 million people have been affected due to floods in 24 provincial regions, including east China’s Anhui and Jiangxi provinces since July, according to Chinese Ministry of Emergency Management.
Since July, the floods have caused 16,000 houses to collapse and led to direct economic losses worth 64.39 billion yuan (some 9.21 billion U.S. dollars), according to local media here on Monday.
China’s national observatory issued a blue alert for rainstorms, even as incessant downpours have already wreaked havoc in vast regions of the country. China has a four-tier, colour-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe, followed by orange, yellow and blue.
Since early June, the water levels of 433 rivers in China have risen over the danger mark, with 33 of them rising to historical highs, the Ministry of Water Resources said on July 13. Heavy rain since July 2 has affected 80 counties in 14 cities in East China’s Anhui Province, including Bengbu, Xuancheng, Tongling, Chizhou, Huangshan, Anqing, Wuhu, Maanshan, Fuyang and Chuzhou, according to local authorities.
As of Sunday evening, four million people have been affected by floodwaters, 664,000 people have been relocated, and about 480, 000 hectares of crops have been destroyed. Floodgates were opened at multiple dams in east China’s Anhui Province to discharge floodwater, after the province continued to see heavy rainfall, said local authorities on Monday.
The water level in several rivers and lakes in Anhui have exceeded the warning level, including the Huaihe River’s Wangjiaba Station and Zhongmiao Station at Chaohu Lake. Hefei, the provincial capital, has upgraded its emergency response for flood control from second to the highest level on Friday, said local authorities. Over 500 immovable cultural relics in 11 Chinese provinces were damaged to varying degrees due to flooding as of July, making it the worst year for relics, according to the National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA).
Provinces along the Yangtze River have been inundated with water from massive flooding. Zhenhai Bridge in Huangshan City, Anhui Province is one of the key national cultural relics that was destroyed during the recent flood, according to Song Xinchao, deputy director of the NCHA. He said some provinces are still under a lot of water and that securing the cultural relics in some of these areas remains “very serious.”
Among the damaged cultural relics, ancient bridges, city walls and buildings were the victims. According to statistics from the NCHA, 76 key national cultural relics and 187 provincial cultural heritage sites have suffered damage of varying degrees. The emergency reinforcement and protective construction around cultural relics shall be included in the cultural relic protection project, said Song.
The NCHA has allocated an emergency fund of 3.5 million yuan (500,000 U.S. dollars) to Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Sichuan provinces and other hard-hit provinces.
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