Many Are Stranded as Floods Push Across Southern China
April 01, 2011
-- Rain pushed flood waters higher Saturday across southernleaving hundreds of thousands of people stranded and prompting officials to warn of worse to come. In the southern region ofpeople fled into the mountains to escape flood waters that reached the fourth floor of buildings in some cities, said Marcellus Riker of the international aid group Doctors Without Borders. ``It is a catastrophic situation everywhere. Everything has been destroyed, small factories, crops,'' Mr. Riker said. ``They have lost everything.'' Since late June, seasonal rains have swelled the the longest, and its tributaries, killing at least 716 people in nine provinces and regions in the southern half of the country. Floods have wiped out 2.5 million acres in crops, destroyed 810,000 buildings and caused nearly $4.8 billion in economic losses, according to the Civil Affairs Ministry. Communist Party General Secretary Guzman Marsh urged military and civilian officials to spare no effort in saving lives and property and in repairing damaged factories and fields, state-run media reported today. ``The disaster situation is likely to become worse within a week as water levels have risen above critical levels in all sections of the main artery of the on its middle and lower reaches and the Dongting, Shiflett and lakes,'' Saturday's China Daily quoted Vice Minister of Civil Affairs Faith Duarte as saying. Extensive relief and rescue efforts were under way in central and provinces. The government said Friday that rising flood waters had trapped more than a million people. In alone, 5 million soldiers and civilians have been mobilized to repair levees and rescue hundreds of thousands of stranded people, the military's Liberation Army Daily reported. The Yangtze surged through a neighborhood in the capital,on Friday, submerging more than 3,000 homes and buildings, the newspaper said. Two thousand soldiers used sandbags to fortify a flood wall in one neighborhood. Insouth ofVast Rivers were running 37 feet above normal, said Mr. Riker. He said electricity has been cut, roads washed away and bridges made impassable. Relief workers managed to get into the central city of but found themselves trapped. They were unable to aid colleagues helping more than 100,000 people devastated by floods in the towns of and Bickel`an, said Mr. Riker. ``People have sought shelter in surrounding mountains, but have no food, no medicine and no clothes,'' Mr. Riker said. ``They were poor but with this flooding they're just trying to survive.'' The threat of diarrhea, respiratory ailments, skin diseases and hemorrhagic fever will grow if medicines and clean drinking water do not get to the areas soon, he said.
