More troops order as typhoon nears
Print Edition
PRESIDENT Xi Jinping has ordered the People’s Liberation Army and armed police to send more troops to affected areas to support flood control and disaster relief after days of torrential rain.
Premier Li Keqiang, meanwhile, said the country should prepare for an arduous campaign against floods over the next few weeks.
Since June 30, heavy rain along the Yangtze River and its tributaries has left 128 people dead and 42 unaccounted for, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has said.
It led to the collapse of 41,000 houses and forced the evacuation of more than 1.34 million people. Nearly 600,000 people are in urgent need of basic living assistance, with 23.3 million threatened by floods.
The rain has destroyed 295,200 hectares of crops and telecommunication and electricity facilities are affected.
With the worst perhaps yet to come, the country must take precautions and prepare to keep residents safe, Li said.
Following Xi’s direct orders, the PLA Rocket Force Command College immediately dispatched a rescue team with 183 service personnel and 16 pieces of rescue equipment to Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province.
Working for hours in torrential rain, they prevented a dike breaching in Qingshan District’s Daokou Lake.
An overnight storm following days of rain had stopped traffic, cut power and water supplies and trapped people in their homes in many parts of the city on the Yangtze.
Local rivers, lakes and reservoirs had swollen, leading to closure of a tunnel under the river as well as some subway stations and underground passages, local traffic authorities said.
From 8pm on Tuesday to 8am yesterday, precipitation in the city proper reached 180 millimeters, with one district — Caidian — getting 206 millimeters.
Over 16,000 people were relocated from Caidian to safety on Tuesday night.
Some 560 millimeters of rain has fallen on the city in the past week, the largest weekly precipitation since records began, according to local forecasters.
As of noon yesterday, floods had made 206 sections of road inaccessible and 113 bus routes were suspended. Twenty-three trains were canceled and 30 delayed.
More than 4,000 police and workers are pumping away flood water, as well as ensuring the safety of pedestrians and vehicles.
Firefighters rescued more than 100 people trapped by floods. One pregnant woman was carried to a boat and managed to get to hospital when she went into labor.
Provincial weather authorities said Nepartak, the first typhoon of the year, had contributed to the torrential rain in Wuhan and other regions in the eastern part and Jianghan Plain of Hubei since Tuesday.
Nepartak was blowing gusts of up to 263 kilometers an hour, some 780 kilometers southeast of Taiwan’s Hualien yesterday afternoon. The typhoon would likely make landfall in Taiwan tomorrow morning and then hit coastal Fujian Province.
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