Flood Kills at Least 91 in China

A torrential flood hit a school in northeast China and swept 91 people -- most of them children -- to their deaths, state media reported Saturday.

Friday’s flash flood inundated a school in Shalan, a remote town in China’s far northeastern province of Heilongjiang. Eighty-seven of the victims were students and the rest were other villagers, the official New China News Agency said.

About 352 students -- all between 6 and 14 years old -- and 31 teachers were in the school when it was slammed by a torrent of water gushing down a mountain after heavy rain, the agency said. At least 17 people were hurt.

Most of the town was still under three feet of water, said an employee at the hospital where the injured were taken. All of the injured children were in stable condition, she said by telephone.

Chinese newspapers ran photographs showing the primary school half-buried by mud and water. Television footage showed brick buildings in the area with walls washed away and fields ravaged by floods.

Many phone links were cut with Shalan, about 275 miles from the provincial capital, Harbin, making it difficult to reach local leaders or determine exactly how many people had been affected by the flood.

China suffers widespread flooding and drought every year.

Last week, days of heavy rains and floods in southern China killed more than 200 people and destroyed nearly 138,000 homes.

More flooding was likely with heavy rain predicted for northern and southern parts of the country in the coming days and several rivers “on the brink of bursting their banks,” the news agency said.