New downpours to hit flooded central and southern China

BEIJING: More torrential rains are likely to hit central and southern China where nearly 100 people have been killed in floods and landslides over the last 10 days, the government said on Monday, as drought rapidly gives way to inundation.

Downpours are forecast for the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, including Guizhou, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan provinces. 

Local governments must prepare for landslides and more flooding as water levels in some reservoirs had reached alarming levels, the administration cited experts as saying.

"Compared with the last round of rainfall, this time the area to be affected will be larger and the amount of rainfall will be at least the same," Bai Chaohai, a flood control official in Hunan province, was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.

"These areas, especially the mountainous western parts of the province, are prone to mud flows and landslides in the heavy rain as the soil has been loosened."

The floods across 13 provinces have killed 94 people with 78 missing, damaging 465,000 hectares (1,800 square miles) of crops, and toppling 27,100 houses and other buildings.

While these are parts of China that had until recently been parched by a harsh drought, more than one million people are still suffering a lack of drinking water, because the rain has been uneven, Xinhua added.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011

Copyright Reuters, 2011