16 die in China’s torrential rains

PanARMENIAN.Net - Torrential rains have killed at least 16 people and affected one-and-a-half million people in southern and northern China, state media has reported, according to Belfast Telegraph.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the heavy rains over the past three days had affected 450,000 people and wiped out crops in the southern Guangxi region.

Another 730,000 people were affected in the southern province of Jiangxi, and 312,000 were affected in the adjacent manufacturing powerhouse province of Guangdong.

Xinhua quoted a local government official as saying the direct economic losses so far were 20.3 million dollars (£13 million), and that water levels in 10 reservoirs and several major rivers had risen above warning levels.

Xinhua said rainstorm-triggered floods have also hit areas of Inner Mongolia in the north of China.

Meanwhile, a moderate earthquake toppled houses in a mountainous part of southwestern China, killing four people and injuring at least 100, state media said.

Sunday's magnitude-5.7 quake was centred near the border of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces where many of the Yi ethnic minority live, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Monday.

It said the casualties occurred in Yunnan's Ninglang county and Sichuan's Yanyuan county, where many houses collapsed.

Rescue officials were sending tents, quilts and clothes to the affected area, it said. The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at magnitude 5.5.