Asian Nations Tally Deaths From Floods

China put the death toll from summer floods at 725 on Thursday, nearly double earlier reports, but state media said it would have been worse without dike repairs begun after last year’s deadly Yangtze River torrents.

The updated reports of casualties emerged as China and other Asian nations began to assess the loss of life and property due to monsoon rains, flooding and landslides.

China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs said in a statement updating the toll that 5.5 million people in 23 provinces had been evacuated from their homes as of Thursday because of flooding that began in June.

Previous reports in official media had put the deaths from flooding this year at more than 400, a fraction of last year’s official toll of more than 4,100.

While much of the flooding season is yet to come, the official New China News Agency said Thursday that the Yangtze River water levels at Wuhan, capital of flood-prone Hubei province, had fallen below warning marks for the first time in 30 days.

Meanwhile, North Korean border guards pulled the bodies of three soldiers from a flood-swollen stream in the demilitarized zone Thursday, after torrential rains that aid workers said have killed 42 people in the Communist nation over the past week.

In the Philippines, rescuers pulled more bodies out of the wreckage of a hillside housing project that collapsed Tuesday. So far, 26 people are confirmed dead from the landslide and at least 71 people have died in the country after four days of rain.

The Red Cross said rains in North Korea hit hardest in areas near the western part of the border with South Korea, where 29 inches of rain fell between Saturday and Tuesday.

In that area, nearly 3,000 people were homeless as flooding left whole villages underwater, swept down telephone poles and inundated fields, the aid group said. In one village, mudslides buried 19 homes, killing 14 people and leaving one missing.

At least 94 people around the area were badly injured, and the death toll was expected to rise, the Red Cross said.

The North Korean government has not released any figures on casualties from the rain. But it says rains damaged crops in the southwest. The reclusive nation is already in its fifth year of acute food shortages caused by floods and economic mismanagement.

At least 40 South Koreans died in the torrential rains.

In Vietnam, the death toll from flooding reached 28. An inmate who swam from a prison garden to a nearby house that had been inundated by flood waters was credited with saving the lives of 11 people.

A fresh onslaught of rain hit eastern Thailand on Thursday, raising fears of new flash floods. At least five people died, and 1,000 people were left homeless in flooding earlier this week.

In southern Cambodia, the bodies of two children killed in flooding Tuesday were found, officials said.