'Unusual' storms kill 86 in S. China
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![A woman carries a TV set after fl oods hit her home in Bajiaoshan village, Hunan province, on Saturday. [China Daily]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20100517/000802ab80120d5ac89802.jpg "A woman carries a TV set after fl oods hit her home in Bajiaoshan village, Hunan province, on Saturday. [China Daily]") |
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A woman carries a TV set after floods hit her home in Bajiaoshan village, Hunan province, on Saturday. [China Daily] |
Low temperatures and torrential rains in South China have killed at least 86 people and affected 8 million others, with downpours forecast to continue in the next few days.
Sixteen people have also gone missing and 275,000 others evacuated in 10 provinces and municipalities in the south since heavy rain hit the areas on May 5, Jiao Yong, vice-minister of water resources, said over the weekend.
"This is meteorologically unusual," China News Services quoted Jiao as saying.
The flood season will be made worse by concentrated, frequent rain in some areas, he said.
The China Meteorological Administration (CMA) forecast on Sunday that most parts of South China will see more wet weather with heavy rainfall or storms in the next three days.
Hubei and Guizhou provinces as well as Chongqing municipality can expect heavy rain or storms during the period, while torrential rain is forecast to hit some southern areas, the CMA said.
A cold front moving eastward is also set to bring temperature plunges and strong winds in northwest China during the coming three days. Temperatures in Gansu province and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region are forecast to fall by up to 8 C. Inner Mongolia and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region will also be affected by dust storms.
Rainstorms in South China since early May have triggered floods and mudslides as well as swollen rivers, burst dikes, threatened reservoirs and damaged highways, bridges and power facilities.
