In Gansu, flooding brings severe losses

Flash floods and landslides triggered by heavy rainfall recently in Longnan, Gansu province, caused direct economic losses of 8.18 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) as of Aug 18, a local official said at a news conference on Thursday.

"It is a once-in-a-century disaster over a long time span with heavy rainfall and severe damage," said Qi Wenzhong, deputy mayor of Longnan.

The storms broke Longnan's historical record of meteorological extremes in number of rainfall events, intensity, range, duration and total precipitation. In particular, Wenxian county received 93.2 millimeters of precipitation in a single day last week, and the total precipitation is 569.1 mm.

On Bikou Town's commercial street in Wenxian county, which was hardest hit by the flood, water measure at a high of 4 meters, inundated all first-floor shops and soaked tea, tobacco, wine and food.

Longnan is located in the Qinba mountain area, with complex terrain and rich water resources. But its fragile ecological environment has been a factor in frequent natural disasters.

Fifty-seven industrial enterprises in the city were affected to varying degrees, and industrial and mining enterprises lost 270 million yuan. As of Tuesday, 407,500 people have been affected, including 72,181 who were evacuated.

Eleven national and provincial trunk roads totaling 803 kilometers were damaged to different degrees; 1,252 county rural roads totaling 4,500 kilometers were severely damaged; 726 water conservancy dikes were damaged; 565 rural drinking water projects were damaged; and 67.85 kilometers of communication lines were destroyed. The flood and landslides caused infrastructure losses of 6.3 billion yuan in Longnan.

Houses collapsed, farmland was destroyed and green fields were covered by water and mud.

The natural disasters affected 14,428 hectares of crops, of which 9,547 hectares were inundated and 1,640 hectares of crops was demolished. The destruction of cultivated land was 1,639.8 hectares and agricultural economic losses amounted to 1.35 billion yuan, according to the government.

Once the torrential flood retreated, all levels of Party committees and governments, together with people from all walks of life, acted swiftly and devoted themselves to intense rescue efforts.