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Eleven feared dead after flash floods in northwest China

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Chine
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DPA
Date de publication

Beijing (dpa) - Eleven people were feared dead on Monday after torrential rain caused flash floods that swept through northwest China's Qinghai province overnight, state media said.

The floods left four dead and seven missing in Xining, the provincial capital, and nearby towns, the official Xinhua news agency said.

They destroyed 17 houses, swept away two trucks and four tractors, and cut many roads, the agency said.

Record rainfall of more than 30 millimetres in 30 minutes fell on Xining, it said.

In southern China's Guangdong and Guangxi areas, hit by torrential rain brought by three typhoons in two weeks, troops and civilians continued to reinforce flood defences on Monday.

In the Guangxi regional capital, Nanning, the water level in the Yongjiang river fell on Monday after reaching 5.4 metres above the flood level on Sunday.

Some 300,000 troops, police, volunteers and flood control workers had battled to prevent what state media said could have been the most serious flood for more than 50 years.

They evacuated 8,680 people from some 2,000 submerged houses in Nanning over the weekend, China News Service said.

But the water level was still rising in the Xijiang, a major river flowing through Guangxi and Guangdong, with a flood peak expected to arrive at Wuzhou city on Monday evening, the agency said.

The typhoons and the resultant floods have caused damage estimated at 15.9 billion yuan (1.9 billion dollars) in Guangxi so far this summer, it said.

On Sunday the agency said the death toll after typhoon Utor had reached at least 23 in Guangdong province, where the typhoon hit land on Friday.

One of the province's major rivers, the Pearl, was 2.6 metres above the danger level, passing the record high of 1993, it said.

Vegetable prices in the provincial capital, Guangzhou, were 58 per cent higher than last year, the local Yancheng Evening News said. dpa bs js

AP-NY-07-09-01 0612EDT

Copyright (c) 2001 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
Received by NewsEdge Insight: 07/09/2001 08:22:39

Deutsche Presse Agentur: Copyright (c) dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH