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Torrential rain leaves 40 dead in Yunnan
By Li Xinran
Shanghai Daily. 13 Aug 08
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2008/200808/20080813/article_370276.htm
FORTY people have died and six others are missing after torrential
rain in
southwest China's Yunnan Province.
Torrential rain due to tropical storm Kammuri swept Yunnan's 11 cities
or
prefectures and triggered flooding and landslides.
About 1,250,000 people in Wenshan, Honghe, Zhaotong, Banna, Chxiong,
Lijiang, Lincang, Puer, Baoshan, Dali and Dehong were affected.
More than 16,000 people were evacuated to safer areas by 4pm on
Tuesday,
while the disaster flattened more than 10,000 houses and damaged
another
18,000.
About 11,000 of the total 107,000 hectares of crops hit by the rain
will
have no harvest this year.
Bad weather also disrupted traffic, communications and electricity and
water
supplies, according to Xinhua.
The central government has put its emergency response procedures into
action
and has sent a task force to the province.
More than 10 million yuan as well as 900 tents, 1,3970 quilts, 770 set
of
clothes, seven tons of rice and 500 barrels of edible oil have been
sent to
disaster-hit areas, Xinhua said.
Kammuri, the ninth tropical storm of the year, lashed southern China
after
its landfall in Guangdong Province last Wednesday, bringing strong
winds of
up to 100 kilometers an hour and the highest rainfall level in a
century.
The storm was the third to hit China this season after tropical storm
Kalmaegi in early July and typhoon Fung Wong in Fujian Province last
week.
Flash floods and landslides brought by Kammuri since Saturday have
battered
mountain villages in northern Vietnam, killing more than 100 people
and
leaving 48 missing.
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