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Flooding kills 44 and forces 330,000 to evacuate in China

Flooding triggered by torrential rains killed at least 44 people and forced the evacuation of about 330,000 in a mountainous region of southern China, the government said yesterday.

The flooding in the Guangxi region also left another 23 people missing and wrecked more than 20,000 houses, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing disaster officials.

The area has been pounded by heavy rain since Saturday, causing swollen rivers to overflow their banks, Xinhua said.

Some 333,000 people have been evacuated from flood-prone areas to higher ground, the agency said.

The Wuzhou River was 8.5m above its danger level at midday yesterday, Xinhua said.

As the waters rose, the city of Wuzhou evacuated 20,000 of its residents, China Central Television (CCTV) reported, as it showed images of police helping elderly residents.

Along the river, thousands were working to fortify its banks and dams by piling up bags filled with earth, CCTV said.

Notices on the mass evacuation were posted on walls in the area, warning sirens blared in the dark of night and Wuzhou residents began to load up cars, trucks and carts with valuables and flee the area for higher ground.

"In the face of these floods, the attitude of the government is to make sure that no one is killed," Ren Kuikang, chief of the Wuzhou flood control and drought relief office, told state television.

With much of southern China now under threat, Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) urged local governments to step up the fight against the flooding, which kills hundreds in China each summer and causes millions of yuan in damage to homes and crops.

Earlier this month, a flash flood swept through a low-lying primary school in Heilongjiang Province, killing 117 people, 105 of them children.

Flooding in Guangxi had killed 24 people and left 23 missing, Xinhua news agency said, citing provincial flood control officials.

More than 330,000 people had been evacuated to higher ground in the region, where the flooding has caused 1.67 billion yuan (US$201 million) in economic losses, damaged 328,000 hectares of crops and toppled more than 20,000 houses, it said.

Flooding damaged another 50,000 houses regionwide.

Authorities had expected the Xijiang, which has risen at a rate of 10cm per hour, to peak on yesterday night at a hydrographic station in Wuzhou.

Heavy rains have killed nine people since Saturday in Guangdong, where a landslide disrupted traffic on a rail line linking China with Hong Kong, Xinhua said.

Rainstorms in Guangdong caused cave-ins on part of the Beijing-Kowloon railway line, forcing dozens of trains to either delay or turn back while repairs were made, it said.

Water levels on two other rivers in Guangxi -- the Qianjiang and Xunjiang -- were above warning levels and the province had suffered nearly US$45 million in economic losses as of Monday due to the recent deluges, Xinhua said, citing local flood control headquarters.

In Fujian Province, floods and landslides had killed 12 and left five missing, it said. In Shunchang County alone in northern Fujian, dozens of landslides had buried nine people, killing five. Three were missing.
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