More than 500 people have been killed in the most devastating floods to hit China for a decade, the Red Cross said on Monday, launching an emergency appeal for aid to the millions left homeless.
”Over the past two months, more than 200-million people have been affected and over 500 have been killed nationwide by some of the worst flooding to hit the country in the last 10 years,” the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement.
Nearly five million residents have been evacuated from their homes because water levels have risen dangerously high along China’s main rivers, while more flash floods, downpours and landslides are expected in the coming days, the statement said.
High temperatures have made life even more uncomfortable for those displaced.
”There’s an urgent need for rice, clean drinking water, shelter, clothing, medical services and disinfectant,” said Gu Qinghui, the federation’s regional disaster management delegate for East Asia.
”It’s the rural poor who are suffering the most, including many farmers,” he said, as the Red Cross launched a preliminary emergency appeal for 9,5-million Swiss francs ($7,7-million).
Gu said millions of hectares of farmland had been submerged, while hundreds of thousands of homes had been damaged or destroyed.
The Red Cross warned that it could take months or years for the poorest communities to rebuild and recover.
”When you look at the economic growth of the country, it’s easy to forget that outside of the major cities, the rural areas are home to many families living in utter poverty,” said Ewa Eriksson, the federation’s acting regional head of delegation in Beijing.
”We don’t want this disaster to become forgotten or neglected because the world’s attention is elsewhere, or because there’s a perception that help isn’t required, because hundreds of thousands of people are in desperate need of assistance,” Eriksson said. — AFP
