Floods retreat in south China, toll rises to 198

BEIJING (Reuters) – Rainstorms and flooding were on the
retreat across most of south China on Tuesday after taking at
least 198 lives, officials said, as people coped with water
shortages, severed roads and damaged homes.

The downpours were brought by Tropical Storm Bilis, which
killed dozens in the Philippines and Taiwan before striking
heavily populated southern China on Friday.

Rain was still forecast for the worst-hit provinces of
Hunan and Guangdong over the next two days, but officials and
residents there reached by telephone on Tuesday reported only
intermittent drizzle and even sunshine.

In the far-southern province of Guangdong, where at least
44 were killed, the government was distributing clean water in
Shaoguan, a city of half a million that was flooded.

“To restore power supply is easier, but it really takes
time to get the taps running again though the water has
basically retreated,” a disaster relief official there told
Reuters by telephone.

Trains resumed on Tuesday on the Beijing-Guangzhou railway
which had been cut by floods and landslides near Shaoguan for
the past three days, Xinhua news agency said.

In nearby Lechang, a prison was besieged by flood waters
and more than 1,600 inmates and 220 guards struggled without
fresh food and drinking water for three days before helicopters
airdropped supplies on Monday, Xinhua said.

Vice Premier Hui Liangyu flew to neighboring Hunan province
on Monday, where 92 were confirmed dead and more than 100 were
missing and many roads, including a major highway, were cut, a
local official said by telephone.

State television showed footage of soldiers evacuating
villagers stranded on the roofs of their homes in Hunan.

“The biggest problem now is drinking water. Many wells in
the countryside were flooded,” an official surnamed Huang in
Leiyang, one of Hunan’s worst-hit areas, told Reuters by
telephone. “And it is very hot today. There is an epidemic
threat.”

The rains also claimed 43 lives in the coastal province of
Fujian, where Bilis made landfall in China, Xinhua said.

However, more heavy rains are expected on Wednesday in the
southwestern region of Guangxi, where authorities ordered
discharge of waters from 557 swollen dams after storms killed
19 and left eight missing.

South China is plagued by rainstorms every summer, but this
year’s flood season has been particularly deadly, already
claiming hundreds of lives before Bilis struck.

Some 2.5 million were evacuated because of Bilis, the
Ministry of Civil Affairs said.

Direct economic losses from the storm totaled 15 billion
yuan ($1.88 billion) after 200,000 hectares of crops and
208,000 houses were destroyed, the Ministry said on its Web
site (www.mca.gov.cn).

($1=7.98 Yuan