Sixteen dead in floods, downpours in southern China
Tens of thousands forced to leave their homes as storms set in
Sixteen people have died and another 10 are missing in China’s southwestern Guangxi region after days of floods and torrential downpours in the country’s southern and central provinces.
Roughly 92,000 people had to evacuate their homes in Guangxi over the weekend as storms inflicted 2.9 billion yuan (US$435 billion) in economic losses on the region, state-run Xinhua reported on Tuesday.
In the city of Baise, a number of multistorey buildings collapsed but no casualties were reported.
Emergency workers used inflatable boats to ferry to safety thousands of students stranded at Guilin Tourism University on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Guilin, on Monday afternoon, the report said.
In Changsha, in central Hunan province, the swollen Xiang River, a major tributary of the Yangtze, rose to record levels of nearly 40 metres.
Farther west in Sichuan province, several towns in Jiangpu county were underwater as more than 50mm of rain fell on Monday night, news portal Thecover.cn reported. Nearly 10,000 residents were forced to move to safer ground, according to news website 163.com.
Footage was posted on social media service Weibo showing several dozen women rescuing a food delivery man trapped under a large fallen tree outside a dormitory at Chengdu University.
Heavy rain is still forecast for Sichuan and the southern province of Yunnan this week, according to the weather bureau.
The Ministry of Finance has also pledged 1.9 billion yuan for relief efforts in the affected areas.
