Floods and related disasters have killed 910 people in China so far this year with another 218 missing, the International Red Cross said on Friday as it launched an emergency appeal for $4,4-million in aid.
Most of the deaths occurred since May, when the flood season kicked in.
”Since the end of May, floods, typhoons and other disasters have hit 27 of China’s 31 mainland provinces,” the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement.
”Some 910 people are reported dead, 218 are unaccounted for and almost three million have been evacuated.”
All told, more than 134-million people have been affected and the flood season is far from over, the federation said.
It obtained the information from China’s Red Cross, which accessed it from the ministry of civil affairs, said Alistair Henley, head of the federation’s East Asia delegation in Beijing.
The figures were collated up to August 10 and include people killed in landslides and heavy rain. They have yet to be made public by the ministry.
The government had earlier reported 764 people dead with another 191 missing since early July.
”It’s not the worst since the 1998 floods, but one of the worst,” Henley said, referring to the most deadly floods in recent years, which killed more than 4 000 people.
”In some places, such as Guangxi province, it’s definitely the worst in recent years.”
The Red Cross appeal will focus on helping five provinces that are worst affected and which are also some of the poorest in China — Anhui, Guangxi, Hunan, Jiangxi and Sichuan.
”Food is the top priority,” it said. ”There has been widespread loss of crops and a large percentage of the people affected are subsistence farmers.”
Annual floods are ”choking the life out of rural China”, the Red Cross said. Aside from dealing with the immediate devastation, farmers also have to cope with deepening hardships from year after year of floods.
”Many villages never recover. Communities are dying from a cumulative exhaustion of resources, and millions of people still suffer from the effects of previous floods,” the Red Cross said.
Floods have always been part of life in China, but officials said this year has been more devastating than usual.
Since serious flooding of the Yangtze River in 1998, China has spent billions of dollars on flood mitigation.
Major rivers have been brought under greater control and early-warning systems have been put in place, but flash floods and landslides caused by unprecedented rains have done serious damage.
Last week, state statistics revealed that during the 2004 flood season casualties were only 40% of the annual average since 1990. Still, 1 343 people died or went missing.
Meanwhile, mudslides trapped more than 1 200 tourists in a scenic spot in south-west China’s Sichuan province on Thursday, flattening two residential buildings, damaging highways and causing a blackout, Xinhua news agency said.
While downpours have wreaked havoc across east China, persistent drought has hit 7,6-million people mostly in northern and western parts of the vast country, the China Daily said.
More than five million hectares of crops have been affected.
In Inner Mongolia, camels’ humps have shrunk as drought scorches the grasslands, where many goats have died of thirst, it reported.
In parts of southern Chongqing, residents have to travel 7km to fetch water. — Sapa-AFP