Chinese Struggle to Overcome Flood Devastation

Chinese soldiers and police struggled Friday to rescue some of the 1 million people stranded by surging floods that have killed at least 237 people.

Soldiers have evacuated 560,000 people and brought food, water and medicine to tens of thousands of flood victims, the Civil Affairs Ministry said Friday.

About 3.2 million acres of farmland have been damaged, as well as thousands of homes, factories and businesses.

In all, China says 10 million people have been injured or suffered property losses in the floods, which stretch from the province of Zhejiang on the east coast to Sichuan in the west.

Flooding was also reported in Shandong in the northeast.

The highest death toll was in the southwestern province of Guizhou, one of China’s poorest areas, where 136 people were reported killed, many of them by landslides.

Damage is reported at $1.2 billion from seasonal storms that have dumped up to 22 inches of rain on nine provinces along the Yangtze River since last weekend.

Li Jiansheng of the National Flood Control Command warned that while the Yangtze and other rivers were flowing at normal levels, they could rise if rains continue, the New China News Agency reported.

Flooding strikes every summer in southern China, where centuries of intensive farming has stripped away vegetation and damaged soil needed to catch rain. Flood-control systems are poorly maintained.

In Paris, the international aid group Doctors Without Borders said Friday that it would send several charter flights to hard-hit flood areas in China.