At least 5,500 villagers have been evacuated after mountain
torrents and mudflows ravaged Luding County of southwest China's Sichuan
Province and northeast China's Jilin
Province on Thursday.
By Friday night, rescuers had relocated 2,812 villagers marooned
by flood
water and evacuated 1,404 students from 12 schools, said officials
with the local publicity department.
The disaster has left four people dead, five missing and 230
injured, affecting the life of 10,516 locals. It also destroyed
5,109 houses across the county.
Evacuees from ramshackle houses were told to stay with relatives
or to stay at local schools and other public facilities arranged by
the local government.
In Chuni Village, one of the worst affected villages in the
county, mountain torrents and subsequent mudflows destroyed roads,
bridges and drowned cropland. The village school, located in a high
risk slope, has been suspended since Thursday.
"My corn field was drowned, but I've still got 20 pigs and one
buffalo at home," said Wang Fuxiu, a peasant woman who is arranged
shelter in a school building. "I have to feed them during the day
and sleep here at night."
Rainstorm Evacuates 1,500 People in Jilin
A destructive rainstorm has forced more than 1,500 people to
evacuate in northeast China's Jilin Province since Thursday, but no
death or injury has been reported.
Torrential rain hit the city of Jilin between Thursday morning
and Friday afternoon, affecting more than 1,500 villagers in three
outlying townships, said officials with the local flood control
headquarters.
More than 100 officials and police officers joined the rescue
operation to relocate the villagers to safety.
The three largest reservoirs in the province, Shitoukoumen,
Xingxingshao and Liangjiashan, began to sluice flood water on
Saturday as local rivers reported the first flood crest in this
flood season.
On Saturday, the average daily rainfall topped 50 millimeters at
42 monitoring stations in the province.
(Xinhua News Agency July 3, 2005)
