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Continuous downpour poses threat

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-06-17 19:31

NANNING - Days of heavy rain have driven up the water level of last week's major flood, threatening thousands in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, local officials said.

Part of a county is submerged in flood water in Yizhou, southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region June 17 2008. More than 70,000 people were relocated on Monday in Guangxi, Xinhua reported. [Xinhua]

As of Tuesday, about 7,000 people had been evacuated without casualties in Longtou Village, Yizhou City and Guangxi, said Lu Zhanhong, Yizhou municipal government deputy director of public relations.

There was a break in the rain on Tuesday, but the water level of the flood, which burst out on June 12 and submerged parts of the village, had risen 1.7 meters as of 8 a.m. on Monday. The deepest point had reached 8.7 meters, Lu said.

The flood, which had affected 15,000, forced evacuations and other emergency situations, while transport was shut down by mud-rock flows.

A continuous downpour had also threatened a reservoir with a capacity of 1.8 million cubic meters, which forced the evacuation of 3,000 people downstream on Sunday. All had been relocated but their food and shelter needs could not be guaranteed, Lu said.

Five other reservoirs in the mountains had been reported in danger of bursting, something which would flood the village government, Lu said.

More than 750 government officials and police had been sent to the rescue work for the reservoirs as of Monday, he said.

As of 5 p.m. that day, 226 roads in Guangxi had been reported damaged since June 8. Sixty were still shut on Monday, said an official with the transport department of the regional government on Tuesday.

Some roads had also been dredged for temporary use but not completely restored as heavy rain swept Guangxi again from Monday to Tuesday, the official said.

The repaired roads might be shut again by damages caused by rain, the official said.

Since June 7, 12 provinces and regions in southern China were swept by continuous heavy rain, with some areas weathering the heaviest rainfall in 100 years.

More heavy rain had been reported by the Chinese Central Meteorological Station in 10 southern provinces, including Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi and Yunnan, at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.