Torrential rains take 25 lives in Sichuan
( 2001-09-22 10:10 ) (1 )

For most farmers in northwestern Sichuan Province, 2001 is definitely not their year.

Their crops have been parched by unprecedented spring and summer droughts.

And right now, their meagre harvests are being swept away by floods brought on by two consecutive days of torrential rain, which have left 25 people dead and 11 missing so far.

With heavy rain still falling in some of the province's western mountainous regions, the residents are afraid of further flooding.

"The farmers have been badly hit this year by an unremitting string of natural disasters," said Tan Xiaobo, a local press official in Deyang, a city about 100 kilometres away from Chengdu, the provincial capital.

Including Deyang, 22 counties and cities have been hit by the rains which started in the evening of September 18. The rainfall in 14 counties and cities soared over 100 millimetres over the next 48 hours.

The two cities of Deyang and Mianyang, which straddle the Baoji-Chengdu Railway, were the most severely hit. The railway was cut when a tunnel five kilometres from Mianyang collapsed.

In Deyang, the rainfall has hit 367 millimetres and in Mianyang, 304 millimetres, around the annual total for most parts of North China.

"I was shocked by the unexpected rain this year. I haven't seen anything like it in my entire life," Yu Dengrong, a local driver in Deyang, told China Daily in a phone interview.

The Deyang government has encouraged all civil workers to donate money for those who have been stricken by the floods. Disaster-relief teams sent by the provincial government have arrived in Deyang and Mianyang to help battle against the floods.