Society

Rain wreaks havoc in Jiangxi

By Wang Qian and Duan Yan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-22 06:49

Rescue workers drive a speedboat to a flooded village on Sunday in Nandan county of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. Rain-triggered floods and landslides have forced the evacuation of more than 1.7 million people in 10 southern provinces and regions, said the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters. [Photo/Xinhua]

YINGTAN, Jiangxi - Boxed milk, coke and some other goods, all soaked and contaminated, were piled up for sale on Monday outside Zhou Longping's grocery store in Yujiang county, Yingtan, Jiangxi province.

Though some passersby doubted whether the contaminated goods were safe, many still bought the items.

"Hopefully I can sell them off for about 2,000 yuan," Zhou said, adding that the milk alone was worth 40,000 yuan ($5,884).

"Altogether, I'd lost about 200,000 yuan overnight," said the distressed 52-year-old Zhou, who has been running his store for about a year.

Shop owner Zhou Longping piles up boxes of milk, coke and other goods, soaked and contaminated in the fl ood, for sale on Monday in Yujiang county of Jiangxi province. [China Daily]

Though floods have retreated after rampaging the county seat, the losses are unrecoverable for Zhou and several others like him.

In Yingtan, a major rail transportation hub, road and rail traffic was cut off on Sunday.

A power station in the city was flooded on Sunday morning and 14 others stopped functioning, leaving at least 400,000 residents without electricity, the provincial power company said.

As of Monday, the water level of all the 26 rivers in Jiangxi has gone above the warning line, while the water level of six rivers, such as Xinjiang river and Fuhe river, has hit a record high.

The Jiangxi provincial flood control headquarters raised its emergency alert level to Level 2 on Sunday evening.

Emergency materials, including 130 high-speed inflatable boats, 290 rubber boats, 481 fuel barrels and 5,000 life vests, were sent to the province since Saturday, the headquarters said.

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The nationwide death toll from the recent torrential downpours rose to 175, with 107 others still missing as of Monday morning, authorities said.

Floods and landslides triggered by the summer deluge have forced more the 1.7 million people to be evacuated and affected more than 25 million people in 10 badly hit southern provinces and regions, according to the latest statistics from the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

A total of 144,000 houses and 1.4 million hectares of farmland have been destroyed, causing direct economic losses of nearly 30 billion yuan ($4.4 billion).

Within 24 hours since 8 am on Sunday, rainstorms hit eastern parts of Jiangxi, central Zhejiang, southern Guangxi, northwest Fujiang and southern Hunan, raising the water levels of 35 major rivers across the country above the warning mark, the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said.

The Office on Sunday decreased the water volume discharged from the Three Gorges on the Yangtze River in order to alleviate the pressure in low-lying areas like Jiangxi and Hunan.

More heavy rains are predicted in the southern areas this week after the new round of summer deluge started hitting most parts of South China since June 13, the China Meteorological Administration said on its official website on Sunday.