China Evacuates Residents And Searches For Mudslide Victims As Storms Lash Parts Of The Country

Beijing: State media said on Saturday that tens of thousands of people had to be evacuated from their homes in China’s southwest after heavy rain caused slopes to collapse, while two people had died and 16 were missing after a mudslide in the country’s west.

Meanwhile, a severe storm battered northeastern China, causing at least 20 trains to be canceled and a river dam bursting.

Every year, torrential rains and flooding affect some areas of China, but this year has been particularly severe in some places while causing agricultural damage in others due to drought.

After a mudslide killed at least two people on Friday on the outskirts of Xi’an, rescuers were looking for survivors, according to Xinhua. It claimed that electrical grids, bridges, and roadways were all affected.

According to the China News Service, about 81,000 people were evacuated from high-risk districts of Sichuan province in the southwest. Although there were reports of traffic disruption and slopes collapsing, no reports of fatalities or injuries were made.

The northeastern city of Changchun and the surrounding Jilin province were expected to receive up to 40 millimeters (1 1/2 inches) of rain per hour from storm Khanun’s remnants, downgraded from a typhoon.

State media said on Saturday that tens of thousands of people had to be evacuated from their homes in China’s southwest after heavy rain caused slopes to collapse.

According to state television, a 300-foot-long (90 meters) break in a river dike was being repaired by a 500-member military construction brigade in the dark on Friday night in the Jilin city of Fuyu. To close the gap, they piled hundreds of sandbags on each other and pushed steel rods into the earth.

According to official TV, more than 20 trains were canceled in Shenyang, the largest city in the northeast, and the nearby Liaoning province. According to Xinhua, the port city of Dalian in Liaoning expected winds as high as 88 kph (55 mph).

According to Xinhua, six rivers and reservoirs in Heilongjiang province and northeast were over alert levels.

Before weakening over the Korean Peninsula and moving towards China, Khanun tore through areas of Japan as a typhoon.

State media said on Saturday that tens of thousands of people had to be evacuated from their homes in China’s southwest after heavy rain caused slopes to collapse.

According to the Ministry of Emergency Management, 142 people were killed nationwide in July in landslides, mountain torrents, and flooding.

According to the government, last week saw the greatest rainfall in at least 140 years in the nation’s capital Beijing and the nearby province of Hebei.

The Hebei government increased the death toll from the floods brought on by Typhoon Doksuri this month to at least 29 on Friday.

This week, Beijing’s official number of flood-related deaths increased to 33. The administration estimated it could take up to three years to fully restore power and other services.

SOURCE – (AP)