China: Flooding death toll tops 2,000
|
|
Flooding in China Thursday
| |
August 6, 1998
Web posted at: 10:23 a.m. EDT (1423 GMT)
BEIJING (CNN) -- More than 2,000 people have died in China's
long season of summer flooding, Chinese officials said
Thursday, raising the previously death toll estimate by 700.
Officials said that floods, landslides and mudflows have
affected some 240 million people -- one-fifth of China's
population and roughly equal to that of the United States.
Landslides and mudflows are responsible for more than 90
percent of the deaths between June and August 3, said China's
Ministry of Civil Affairs.
The death toll could go higher, as the battle against China's
swollen waterways, particularly the Yangtze River, is
expected to drag on for weeks, officials said.
|
