HEFEI/CHANGSHA/WUHAN, July 9 (Xinhua) --
Suffering from rain-triggered mountain torrents twice in 24 hours,
residents in Biyun Village in east China's Anhui Province said they had
never experienced such downpours before. "It's
getting bigger every time, and parts of the village were inundated by
knee-deep floodwater," said 54-year-old Xia Minghua, Party secretary of
Biyun, in the city of Xuancheng. The
village was battered respectively by two torrential floods at 5 a.m.
and 8 p.m. on Monday and a total of five bouts of heavy rains in
Xuancheng since it entered the flood season this year had forced the
evacuation of 22,107 people as of Tuesday. "Before
the flash floods, local authorities had arranged for the relocation of a
dozen villagers living in lowlands, riverbanks and other places
vulnerable to floods," said Fang Guanghu, a resident of Biyun. "We
are now temporarily living in a conference room in our village,
provided with meals, television, mosquito-repellent incense and quilts,
all free of charge," Fang added. While
relocating residents, local authorities are racing against time in
their rescue work, as "trees and debris washed down by mountain torrents
blocked the river channel. We have to dredge it in time to prevent more
severe damage in the upcoming floods," Xia said. Since
June, continuous downpours have lashed parts of China and the waters of
many rivers in the affected regions exceeded warning levels. China's
State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters upgraded the
emergency flood response from Grade IV to Grade III on Tuesday. The
country has a four-tier flood control emergency response system, with
Grade I representing the most severe. Although a few days have passed, 65-year-old Luo Yuehua still felt scared when recalling her experience on Monday night. "At
around 10 p.m. Monday, local officials came to persuade us to evacuate
as fast as possible, as my house was in great danger of collapse due to
days of torrential downpours," Luo said. Hidden
in a mountainous area, Qinglong Village, where Luo lives in Qiaoziwan
Township, central China's Hunan Province, was hit by a rain-triggered
landslide late Monday night, when local officials went into the village
to relocate 62 residents to a small campus on the highland. With
a high altitude and loosely distributed residents, Qinglong was hit
hard by Monday's sudden rainfall, with many sections of the mountain
roads to the village blocked by falling rocks and tree branches, making
it urgent to conduct relocation, said Liu Furong, head of Qiaoziwan
Township. Besides Qinglong Village,
Hunan had evacuated a total of 6,427 people as of Tuesday as a result of
the continuous heavy rain that affected more than 146,000 people in the
province, according to the provincial flood control and drought relief
headquarters. At Qinglong Village's
relocation site on a small schoolyard, the classrooms have been
converted into temporary dormitories. Children can play on the
playground while villagers can sit and chat, according to Liu. Lashed
by incessant downpours, central China's Hubei Province raised its
emergency response for natural disaster relief from Grade IV to Grade
III starting from Wednesday noon. The
recent rounds of heavy rain since July 4 have claimed two lives and
affected more than 2.55 million residents across Hubei as of Wednesday
morning, said the provincial emergency management department, adding
that about 65,000 people have been relocated. "With
food, drinks and other daily necessities all offered free of charge, we
don't need to worry about anything here," said Fang Yaorong, a resident
living in Tianxingzhou Island in Wuhan, capital of Hubei, who was
evacuated to a relocation site at a primary school in Wuhan's Wuchang
District. Enditem
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