Posted by Elana Janson on October 08, 2010 at 05:22:12:
2010 has been another year of unusually heavy rainfall in China.
By late June 2010, flooding had killed at least 379 people and forced some 100,000 more from their homes in southern China.
Flooding is an annual event along the Yangtze River, but in mid-2010 Chinese state media likened the 2010 summer flooding to the especially devastating inundations in 1998, which ultimately caused at least 3,700 casualties and left 15 million residents temporarily homeless.
On 21 August 2010 it was reported that more than 50,000 people were moved from their homes on China's border with North Korea, after the Yalu river burst its banks in heavy rain. This was the worst in a decade.
In the port city of Dandong, August floodwater caused a dyke to burst triggering severe flooding in an industrial area. Some 51,000 residents were taken to higher ground.
In the first week of October 2010, 1 000 villages on China's Hainan island were hit by the heaviest rains for decades. Over 200 000 were evacuated and it is said to be the worst on the island off China's southeastern coast since 1961.