Natural disasters leave 268 dead in April

BEIJING - Natural disasters across China in April claimed 268 lives and left 21 people missing, according to an official statement on Wednesday.

Disasters affected more than 52.7 million people and forced 942,000 people to evacuate to safer places, said the statement jointly released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the National Commission for Disaster Reduction.

The disasters caused direct economic losses of 37 billion yuan ($6 billion), but this does not include those caused by the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Lushan county in Southwest China's Sichuan province last month as statistical work on that is still being carried out.

During April, more than 8,000 houses collapsed and about 244,000 homes were damaged to varying degrees, according to authorities.

Disasters affected more than 5.36 million hectares of farmland, with 644,600 hectares yielding no crops at all, the joint statement said.

Natural disasters in April were mainly earthquakes, as well as flooding, wind and hail, freezing weather, droughts, sandstorms and forest fires among others, resulting in heavier losses than in the same period last year.