More than 3,5-million people have been left homeless by floods ravaging China, the International Federation of Red Cross said on Tuesday as it launched an emergency appeal for help.
”An enormous number of people are living under plastic sheeting or in tents on top of the very dykes whose rupture destroyed their homes and their fields,” said Alisdair Henley, head of the Red Cross’s delegation in Beijing.
”These people then have to go back and rebuild their lives and livelihoods — and they need all the help they can get.”
A Red Cross assessment mission to the worst affected areas in eastern, central and southern China concluded that around 100-million people were affected in 16 provinces.
Many of them have lost all their belongings and will be unable to return home for several weeks.
Hundreds of people have been killed, and the death toll continues to rise daily.
On Tuesday, 11 more perished when a section of an ancient city wall collapsed after heavy rain in eastern Shuzhou city in Anhui province.
Sleeping migrant workers were crushed to death when a segment of wall 15mwide and seven metres high gave way, the Xinhua news agency said.
Continuous rainstorms have battered Anhui, with more than a million people alone being evacuated from low-lying areas. The worst of the flooding has been along the Huai River, flowing to the north of China’s flood prone Yangtze River.
The Xinhua news agency said water levels began rising again on Tuesday after heavy rainfall in its upper reaches and major tributaries, marking the arrival of a third flood crest since late June.
By early morning, the water level at the Wangjiaba hydrological station had reached 27,53m, one metre higher than Monday’s level and 1,53m above the alert line.
Water levels also exceeded the alert line at other major hydrological stations, according to water control authorities in Anhui.
The sluices meanwhile along the Huaihongxin River, a major distributary of the Huai River, were opened early on Tuesday to divert surging flood waters.
The Red Cross, which is appealing for $5,7-million in aid, said many of the dykes protecting vast areas of farmland and villages along the Huai were soaked and vulnerable to collapse.
Thorir Gudmundsson, a Red Cross official who is in Lixin county, Anhui province, said people were desperate and had lost everything.
He said the onset of disease such as malaria was a key worry.
”The main health problems are diarrhoea and skin infections. Most of the people on the dykes have skin infection under their feet,” he said.
”The authorities have set up medical stations on the dykes that dispense free medical care and drugs. There are making efforts to prevent contagious diseases.”
In Lixin, 1 197 villages were under water and 320 000 people have had to flee their homes.
”Some people stay on the roof of their inundated houses and refuse to be evacuated. There is a danger because the houses can collapse,” he said. – Sapa-AFP