The death toll from rainstorms in east China's Shandong Province
had risen to 40 by Friday, the provincial civil affairs bureau
announced Saturday.
Nine remained missing after the torrential rains started to hit
the province on Wednesday and 197 were injured. The previous death
toll was 32 by Thursday, bureau officials said.
About 559,200 people were affected, of whom 112,600 were
evacuated.
Jinan, Shandong's capital and the worst-hit city, received up to
118 mm of precipitation in an hour during Wednesday's
rainstorm.
Officials with the Shandong Department of Water Resources said
the rainstorm was the worst since 1916 when Jinan began to collect
hydrologic data.
The water level was 23.58 meters in the Huangtaiqiao hydrologic
station of Jinan at 8:24 PM on Wednesday, 1.04 meters above the
danger line.
Thirty-four people died in the city in collapsed buildings and
submerged vehicles, or by electrocution.
The rainstorm, the worst this year to hit Shandong, also
disrupted traffic and electricity and water supply for three
hours.
Thirteen large and medium-sized reservoirs in the province have
seen their water levels surpass the danger line by 8 AM Saturday
and six of them had to open sluice to discharge flood water.
All the large and medium-sized reservoirs in Shandong have
stored 3 billion cubic meters of water on Saturday, 900 million
cubic meters more than the normal level, as it rained continuously
since Wednesday.
The Shandong provincial government has allocated 10 million yuan
(US$1.3 million) in disaster relief funds to Jinan and delivered
3,000 quilts.
(Xinhua News Agency July 21, 2007)
