On the afternoon of July 15, a landslide in Yachi Township of Bijie City, located in southwest China’s Guizhou Province, killed five people, injuring eight others. Heavy rainstorms since early July caused flooding and triggered more landslides throughout the provinces of Sichuan and Shaanxi, leaving nearly 100 dead.
A local resident of Yachi told The Epoch Times on July 16, “We’ve experienced drought with no rain for more than a month. It’s quite uncommon to see landslides during the dry season.”
Sichuan Worst Hit
Since July 7, heavy rainfalls have affected all of the country’s 16 provinces, according to the Quanzhou Evening News, a newspaper in the city of Quanzhou in Fujian Province.
Torrential rains have caused flash floods, triggering landslides and mudslides, causing more than 100 deaths and severe damage, according to statistics by China’s Ministry of Civic Affairs.
Sichuan has been the hardest-hit province, the paper said.
As extremely violent storms passed just west of Sichuan, the amount of precipitation that fell in the city of Dujiangyan was recorded over 45 inches (3.75 feet), roughly the equivalent of its average yearly rainfall, according to a report by Sichuan’s Civil Affairs Bureau.
“It has been raining [a lot] recently. Landslides have occurred on the roads to Sichuan’s Abazhou County and other towns,” an official at Dujiangyan told Sound of Hope.
Heavy storms reportedly caused widespread damage across 16 cities and 91 counties, affecting a population of 3.46 million. Sixty-eight deaths were reported, with 179 missing, and an estimated 303,200 people had to be evacuated. Around 13,400 homes and buildings were destroyed and 152,000 damaged.
In addition, nearly 387,000 acres of crops were affected, with over 66,000 acres of crops completely destroyed. Direct economic losses have been estimated at 20.19 billion yuan (US$3.28 billion).
Storms have also swept northern China’s Shaanxi Province, disrupting the lives of 943,000 people, killing 28 and forcing the evacuation of 111,000, with 13,000 homes destroyed and 63,000 homes damaged. Direct economic losses there have been estimated at 1.89 billion yuan ($307 million).
Translated by Euly Luo. Written in English by Barbara Gay.
Read the original Chinese article.
