China Landslides Kill at Least a Dozen
A series of landslides triggered by torrential rain killed at least 12 people early today in the southern city of Wuzhou, the official New China News Agency said.
The deaths came a day after a rain-swollen river in southern China swept through 11 Fujian province villages as people slept, the news agency said.
No deaths were immediately reported in the flooded villages. Today’s destruction came amid what the government says is some of the worst flooding in three decades. At least 55 people have been killed since late May and 12 are missing.
Changting County in Fujian received more than 3 1/2 inches of rain in two hours, causing the Bashili River to flood the 11 villages, the news agency said, citing flood-control officials in the province.
About 3,500 families lived in the villages, it said.
Rescuers, including paramilitary police and fire brigades, helped evacuate more than 16,000 people from the area and were reinforcing the riverbank, the news agency said.
The landslides occurred during nine hours of torrential downpour, it said. Nearly 15,000 people were evacuated from Wuzhou, which is in Guangxi province.
Across southern China, at least 378,000 people have been evacuated from the provinces of Fujian, Guangdong and Guizhou because of floods prompted by an unusually heavy monsoon, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said.
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