Death Count in China Dam Burst Revised; Report Misread

BEIJING — U.N. officials in Beijing said Friday that 257 people were killed when a dam burst in China last week and not 1,257 as reported Thursday by the world body in Geneva.

U.N. Development Program official Antonius Broek said the U.N. Department of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva had misread a Chinese document, which actually reported only 257 people killed Aug. 27 in the collapse of the Gouhou reservoir dam in Qinghai province.

Broek said the error resulted from a single misplaced space in the English translation of a Chinese document, which read, “As of September 1,257 people were dead” instead of “as of September 1, 257 people were dead.”

The United Nations put economic losses from the disaster at some $27 million, a heavy blow for one of China’s poorest regions. It said nearly 3,000 homes had been destroyed.