More villages abandoned after floods kill 76 in southern China

[Tie]

The villages were flooded to avert the risk to some 2.5 million people downstream, following floods and landslides that have already left at least 76 dead and 13 missing over the past week, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

All 10,000 residents were safely evacuated and more may follow if the floods continue to pose a risk to major settlements, the government's Xinhua news agency quoted local officials as saying.

The level of the Hanjiang had dropped by 0.9 metre since water was diverted on Monday but remained 3.5 metres above the danger level, the agency quoted the food control office in Guangdong's Fengshun county as saying.

Several landslides have already occurred along the river since Friday.

"If we hadn't opened the discharge gate, the dam might have overflowed and the losses would have been much more serious," local official Guo Chunshan said.

Most buildings in Huanshi village were under nearly 2 metres of water after the diversion.

The local government organized more than 500 police and army personnel to help evacuate the villagers, some of them by bamboo rafts, the agency said.

Local governments have been warned to prepare for more floods as heavy rain is forecast to continue in the area until Thursday.

The past week of rainstorms across six southern provinces has left at least 788,000 homeless, the ministry said.

By Monday evening, local authorities had reported that about 14 million people were affected as the floods destroyed some 69,000 buildings and damaged 144,000 others.

Initial estimates of direct economic losses totalled 4.73 billion yuan (620 million dollars), it said.

Floods and landslides have already killed at least 200 people in China this summer, with experts warning of a high risk of more flooding along the Yangtze River in central China and the north-eastern Songhua River.