Floods and drought continued to play havoc last week, raising the
death toll across the country, with experts blaming the freaky weather
conditions on global warming.
More than 700 people have been killed in
floods, landslides, mudslides and storms across 24 provinces and 82.05 million
have been affected.
The water level in Huaihe River has started receding
but incessant showers continue in the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze
River.
The Huaihe River Flood Control and Drought Relief
Headquarters said yesterday that the water level in Wangjiaba, a key hydrological station in
the middle reaches of the Huaihe, dropped slightly below the danger level of
27.5 m on Saturday night. That was the lowest in 26 days.
But Long Bin,
spokesman for Anhui provincial flood control headquarters, warned that the
southern part of the river would still be flowing above the danger level till
early August.
A 100-m stretch of a dam in Huajiahu in Fengtai County of
Anhui in the lower reaches of the Huaihe collapsed on Saturday.
The
disaster occurred after 20 days of heavy downpours.
More than 1,000
villagers have been evacuated but no one has been reported hurt.
Wuhan,
capital of Central China's Hubei Province, has been battered by floods because
of the gushing Yangtze.
Hailstorms and rain claimed 10 lives and injured
300 people in Hubei in the past two days, and about 1,600 people had to be moved
to safer places.
Last week, heavy rain in mountainous regions of the
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region caused floods and triggered landslides, killing
more than 90 people, stranding thousands and hampering the movement of traffic,
the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) said.
Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan
has asked local governments to improve their disaster forecast mechanisms and
protect life and property at all costs as more rain and typhoons are forecast
for the coming weeks.
The MLR has sent 14 special teams to help local
authorities handle possible disasters.
There are fears that the death
toll in Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces could rise with more rain forecast for the
next few days, the Central Meteorological Station said.
Chinese experts
blame the extreme weather conditions on global warming. Unbalanced distribution
of rainstorms, persistent high temperatures, severe drought and powerful
typhoons are all the result of climate change.
China Meteorological
Administration Chief Forecaster Wang Yongguang said abnormal weather will
continue to plague most parts of China this summer and in the years to come.
About 1.93 million people in South and parts of East China are facing
acute drinking water shortage because of drought.
And about 1.61 million
hectares of farmland in Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Fujian provinces don't have
irrigation water, according to the website of the State Flood Control and
Drought Relief Headquarters (SFDH) office.
Wang forecast two or three
typhoons in August, saying a mild typhoon was actually good as a drought relief.
Usually typhoons hit China once or twice every June, and twice or thrice
in July and August.
But till the end of this July, no major one has hit
the country. "That's a clear sign of abnormal weather," he said.
"Heavy
rainfall doesn't increase the total precipitation level because it is
distributed unevenly over time and space," he said.
SFDH data show South
and East China have received 50 percent or more rainfall this summer compared to
normal years.
On the other hand, parts of North and Northeast China are
in the grip of drought, considered
the most serious in two decades, Xu Ying, director of the climate change
monitoring and analyzing office of the China Meteorological Administration said.
Ministry of Water Resources officials said surface water in North China
is shrinking fast, resulting in a 12 percent reduction in the Yellow, Huaihe,
Haihe and Liaohe rivers. Heat waves are sweeping across Zhejiang, Jiangxi,
Fujian and Guangdong provinces.
And Fujian and the Chongqing
Municipality have recorded temperatures above 35 C for 20 consecutive days.
An extreme temperature of 42 C was recorded in Zhejiang in 2003 and
Chongqing and Sichuan last year.
(China Daily 07/30/2007 page 1)
Vocabulary:
in the grip of：受制于某事
（英語點(diǎn)津 Linda 編輯）
About the broadcaster:
Bernice Chan is a foreign expert at China Daily Website. Originally from
Vancouver, Canada, Bernice has written for newspapers and magazines in Hong Kong
and most recently worked as a broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation, producing current affairs shows and
documentaries.
