(Vatican Radio) North eastern China is suffering its worst floods in 15 years. Heavy
rain has left at least a hundred people dead and homes and crops destroyed.
Soldiers
heaved sandbags into place to strengthen a dyke in Heilongjiang province, where some
entire towns are submerged; in neighbouring Liaoning province, more than 6,000 buildings
have collapsed. Across north eastern China, the floods have affected almost four million
people, official figures show, and on Monday China's president demanded an all-out
effort to save lives and livelihoods.
Rescuers in small boats like this one
have been trying to help people stranded on the upper floors of buildings, throwing
them supplies such as bottled water.
There has been unusually heavy rainfall.
And the floods will likely damage China's harvest this year. The northeast is where
much of the nation's corn is grown, and more than three quarters of a million hectares
of farmland are estimated to be underwater.
And it all adds to losses last
week in southern China when Typhoon Utor made landfall, leaving at least 22 people
dead there.