2010-07-20 07:03

WANGJIANG, Anhui - For Gao Shiying and thousands of his fellow villagers, life along the banks of the Yangtze River has carried on as usual, even as water levels here remained 29 cm above warning levels on Monday.

Rescue workers use a boat on Monday to search for people stranded on a fl ooded street in Quxian county, Sichuan province. [China News Service]

"We have experience in battling the floods," Gao, 64, said, pointing to the water over the Gonggu dike. "We've had major floods in 1998 and 1999 - as you can see everyone in our village is working and living as usual."

However, these have, undeniably, been tough times for the region. Since July 8, the heaviest rainfall since 1999 has been pounding the province.

Consequently, local authorities and citizens alike have had to scramble to save lives and livelihoods. Wen Haima, director of the Xilian dike flood control office near Leichi township, for example, noted a harrowing 60-m-long collapse of the Gonggu dike that was discovered on Sunday by a citizens' patrol team.

With 8,800 residents in danger, more than 100 local officials and farm workers built reinforcements with the help of five transport trucks.

Constructed in the 1950s, the Gonggu dike - which ranges in length from 5,552 m to 65.3 km at various locations - is the main dike preventing the Yangtze River from flooding fields in Wangjiang county.

Until July 16, the death toll from summer storms in 11 provinces and regions had reached 146, with another 40 people still missing - primarily in regions along the Yangtze River Basin, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

In another development, floods and landslides triggered by continuous rain have left at least 34 dead and 87 missing in Southwest China's Sichuan province and Northwest China's Shaanxi province, local authorities said on Monday.

In Ankang city, Shaanxi, flash flooding and landslides on Sunday left eight dead and 57 missing, a municipal government spokesman said.

In the mountainous county of Langao in Ankang, some 20 people were missing after landslides and mud-rock flows struck several villages late on Sunday, the spokesman added.

Rescue workers continue to search for the missing after days of rain sent hillsides tumbling through Muzhu and several nearby villages in the central province on Sunday.

About 650,000 people were affected and 100,000 were evacuated from low-lying areas, he said.

Meanwhile, between July 15 and 19 torrential rain led to 11 deaths and landslides buried 44 people. In addition, 88,000 were evacuated from Shaanxi, according to local officials.

In Sichuan province, at least 23 people were killed and 30 were missing on Sunday after the worst rainstorm of the year struck the region late on Friday, the provincial civil affairs department said on Monday.

More than 586,000 people were forced to evacuate as torrential rain slammed the province, triggering massive mudslides, landslides and building collapses, cutting off roads, electricity and communications in some regions.

Half of Quxian, the worst hit county, has experienced water levels of up to 10 meters deep. The county is also cut off from the outside world, with roads and railways completely flooded, officials said.

The flood in the Qujiang River has been the worst on record in 160 years, according to the People's Daily.

More than 135,000 people in the city were evacuated when two-thirds of the old town of Guang'an was flooded.

In Chongqing, more than 6,000 people in Wanyuan were evacuated as of early Monday due to a possible breach in a dam after a lake had been blocked with debris from a nearby mountain following days of torrential rain, local media reported on Monday.