Beijing, June 9 (BNA) At least 10 people were killed and three were missing in floods in central China’s Hunan Province, state media reported.
Storms have hit the province since the beginning of the month, with some monitoring stations reporting historic levels of precipitation, Xinhua news agency said late Wednesday.
Xinhua said about 1.8 million people were affected in the largely rural mountainous region – 286,000 of whom were evacuated to safety while more than 2,700 homes were damaged or completely collapsed.
China experiences floods regularly during the summer months, most often in the central and southern regions that tend to receive the most precipitation.
The Associated Press reported that the worst floods in China in recent years were in 1998, when more than 2,000 people were killed and nearly 3 million homes destroyed, mostly along the Yangtze River, China’s most powerful river.
The government has invested heavily in flood control and hydropower projects such as the gigantic Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River.
Globally, severe tropical storms are on the increase as a result of climate change, leading to increased flooding that threatens human lives, crops, and groundwater quality.
MI