Weather

Citation

(1999), "Weather", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 8 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.1999.07308dac.002

Weather

Weather

30 June 1998 - Bucharest, Romania

Keyword: Floods

The death toll in weeks of flooding in Romania has risen to 31 and damage to crops, homes and roads is estimated at nearly $150 million, the Government said today. A Government statement said floods caused by heavy rains had affected 33 of Romania's 41 counties, mostly in Transylvania in the centre of the country and Moldova in the north-east. At least ten people have died in the past week and thousands have been evacuated from their homes. Weather forecasters said more rain was due, but predicted lower rainfall than in the past week. Rivers which had been above flood level were now dropping. The Government statement put the total bill for damages to crops, communications and homes at 1.28 trillion lei ($147.6 million). It said 230,000 hectares of farmland had been affected by floodwaters but the Agriculture Ministry said southern grain-producing regions had been spared. The Government allocated funds for repairs and said offers of help had been received from several embassies. Authorities last week appealed to the European Union for assistance.

11 July 1998 - China

Keyword: Floods

Following received from the BBC: A total of 234 people have been reported dead as a result of serious flooding in east China's Zhejiang Province and south-western province of Sichuan, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said here today. Since June, 27 cities and 158 counties in the two provinces, which have a combined population of 15 million, have been flooded as a result of the unusually heavy rains. Floodwaters have destroyed 100,000 houses and left more than 90,000 people homeless. The flooding also affected more than a million hectares of cropland and caused serious damages to local infrastructure like irrigation facilities, communications, power, and highways, and direct losses of Yuan 4.6 billion (about $ 500 million). The ministry says that the provincial capital Chengdu, the iron and steel centre Panzhihua, and GuangYuan, Yibin, Meizhou and Liangshan were the areas most seriously hit in Sichuan. In Zhejiang, the flooding mainly hit the central and southern regions, and the new Jinhua-Wenzhou railway was closed for a while. Ministry officials say that the Sichuan and Zhejiang governments have been involved in the fight against the flooding and have allocated Yuan 30 million and over Yuan 20 million respectively for flood relief.

16 July 1998 - Devastating floods across vast swathes of China have killed 760 people, Xinhua news agency said today, for the first time giving an official nation-wide death toll. Xinhua quoted the Ministry of Civil Affairs as saying the flooding, caused by heavy summer rains, had affected more than 70 million people. Annual floods arrived early this year, destroying more than 1.4 million houses and 4.7 million hectares of crops, causing losses of more than 47 billion Yuan, Xinhua said. Worst hit were the eastern provinces of Fujian, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang, central Hubei and Hunan Provinces, southern Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces, and the south-western province of Sichuan. The Ministry of Civil Affairs had allocated nearly 100 million Yuan for relief, Xinhua said. Official reports this week said rains were expected to ease slightly in the flood-stricken south this month but were heading north, threatening autumn grain crops.

19 July 1998 - China has evacuated 132,000 people stranded by swollen waters near the Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze River and warned local authorities to prepare for heavy flooding, officials and state media said today. Devastating floods across much of China this summer have killed 1,000 people and caused a scare over the $29 billion dam project as officials braced for a massive crest of water rushing down the Yangtze, state media have said. The river's torrential flow forced the 11-day closure of a lock at the dam, leaving thousands stranded at the small port of Maoping in central China's Hubei province, Xinhua said. Xinhua said the Yangtze's latest crest had passed the dam safely early yesterday, peaking at 57,000 cubic metres per second, well below the project's limit of 65,000 cubic metres per second. "The flood peak passed without any problem, and there was no damage", an official with the China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Development Co. said. But the Yangtze's flood peak was now approaching the river's middle reaches, and water levels 0.73 - 2.33 metres higher than warning marks threatened to breach dikes in the area, Xinhua said. About 820,000 people were repairing dikes along the Yangtze, while more than 10,000 workers were preparing for emergencies along the Yellow River in northern China as its first flood peak this year approached the river's lower reaches, it said. Yesterday, China said the floods were behind an 11 percent drop in the summer grain harvest and had shaved 0.4 percent points off first-half economic growth. Across the country, the Disaster Relief Department under the Ministry of Civil Affairs had allocated 320 million Yuan in emergency funds, they have said. Xinhua has said local governments were contributing another 300 million Yuan to the relief efforts. The agency quoted meteorologists as saying the rains were moving northward, but warning that serious flooding could continue with the arrival of summer typhoons.

20 July 1998 - A lightning bolt killed 14 people in south-western China when it struck a house where a crowd of farmers were taking shelter from a storm, the Xinhua news agency said today. Another 42 people in the town of Yungui were injured when the lightning hit the brick house where about 60 people had taken refuge during the thunderstorm on 10 July, the agency said. Several dozen people had been released from hospital but others were still being treated for serious injuries, it said. Severe rain storms throughout much of the southern half of China have claimed more than 1,000 lives this summer. Most of the deaths have been caused by flooding, but landslides, lightning and collapsing homes have also killed people, state media has said.

20 July 1998 - The Red Cross today issued an appeal for aid to help one million victims of devastating floods that have ravaged China and killed at least 1,000 people this summer. "Several hundred thousand families urgently need food and medicine after severe floods devastated south and central China", the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement. The floods, which have relentlessly deluged the southern half of China since March, were the worst in living memory for many areas, the statement said. The IFRC operation aimed to raise 6.7 million Swiss francs, $4.5 million, to provide 40 kg of rice or wheat to each of the families worst-hit by the floods, it said. "Homes and personal food stocks were washed away by torrents of water. Crops meant to feed the families through the summer were just ready for harvesting when the floods destroyed them", it said. Devastating floods across much of China this summer have killed 1,000 people and wreaked havoc with agriculture and industry.

23 July 1998 - Devastating rains which have hit much of China this summer have swept across the normally arid north-western province of Shaanxi, killing 113 people and leaving 90,000 homeless, local officials said today. Flooding caused by heavy rains from 4-20 July destroyed 2,333 hectares of farmland and 22,000 houses, causing losses of Yuan 1.2 billion ($145 million), said an official of the Shaanxi Civil Affairs Department. The floods also injured 2,625 people and left 69 missing, the official said. Seasonal summer rains across China have killed more than 1,000 people, destroyed 2.9 million houses, and ruined more than nine million hectares of crops this year, state media have said. The China Daily today quoted Chen Zaisheng, director of the Shaanxi Civil Affairs Department, as saying many southern parts of the province were left without roads, power, telecommunications, housing or food. Heavy rainstorms were forecast to hit the province again in late July and early August, the newspaper said. State media said yesterday that China's Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin had warned cities along the swollen Yangtze river, especially Wuhan, to brace for floods after torrential rains struck central China. The second flood peak on the Yangtze River passed Wuhan this morning with no reported damage, the official Xinhua news agency said. In central Jiangxi province water levels on the Changhe River in Jingdezhen city were rising at 50mm per hour because of torrential rains over the past few days which flooded parts of the city centre, Xinhua said. Rainfall of 305mm over the last five days had pushed water levels on the river 2.5 metres above danger levels, it said. Local authorities were reinforcing dikes and dams in northern parts of Jiangxi where further rains were forecast to strike over the next two or three days, it said.

24 July 1998 - Devastating rains pounded three central China provinces last weekend (18-19 July), adding 145 deaths to the toll of more than 1,100 dead from summer flooding, a government report said today. Flooding caused by heavy rains from 17-20 July affected 21 million people in 71 counties in the provinces of Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan, the latest flood update issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs said. The floods also destroyed 780,000 houses and hit 1.26 million hectares of farmland and about 180,000 hectares reported total crop failure, the report said. Economic losses in the three provinces caused by the floods reached 9.2 billion Yuan ($ 1.11 billion), it said. "The floods have affected our harvest of early rice and growth of late rice and cotton", said a Hubei provincial official. "The output of rice and cotton is also expected to decline", the official said. An official in Hunan said the province's rice, cotton and peanut output was expected to fall due to the floods. "Floods hit our major grain-growing regions", she said. Floods also seriously hit rice and cotton in Jiangxi Province, a local official said. "Most crops in our province were hit by floods", she said. Flooding caused by heavy rains from 4-20 July has swept across the normally arid north-western province of Shannxi, killing 113 people and leaving 90,000 homeless, a Shannxi provincial official said yesterday. The latest flooding brings the death toll to at least 1,270 people.

26 July 1998 - The Yangtze River has swollen to record high levels across central China as communities along the key waterway brace for more flooding from seasonal storms which have so far claimed at least 1,200 lives, state media said today. Overnight readings by the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters in hard-hit Hubei province found record high water levels at three points on China's longest river and officials predicted still higher levels, Xinhua news agency said. Water levels at the Hubei provincial capital of Wuhan inched over the "danger level" late last night, posing fresh threats to an industrial centre lashed by 66cm of water this week, the agency said. "We've never experienced flooding this bad", said city official Xia Han. "Everything was inundated all at once", he said, describing flash floods from rains that added to the Yangtze deluge. Soldiers and citizens scrambled to fortify the ancient earthen dikes which protect nearly one half of Hubei's 59 million population who live on low-lying plains along the Yangtze. To protect the vital dikes from waves caused by passing ships, navigation on the Yangtze from Wuhan down river to Shishou was suspended at midnight last night until further notice, Xinhua said. In Wuhan itself, ships faced strict speed limits, and those carrying dangerous cargoes would be banned from passing under bridges spanning the Yangtze River, the agency said. A similar ban on movement along central China's main waterway was imposed around the massive Three Gorges Dam project at Yichang, some 600km upriver from Wuhan. Xinhua said both the diversion channel and shiplock built to allow use of the river during construction of the dam had been completely shut down, suspending navigation on the entire Three Gorges section of the Yangtze. More than 1,000 ships stranded at the dam work site were safely brought into port and some 170,000 passengers from the ships were moved out of danger, the agency said. Construction was still proceeding on schedule, Xinhua said. As more than 60,000 people in Wuhan kept watch on the river embankments for further possible surges of muddy water, officials strained to cope with the aftermath of earlier flooding. "There's no electricity, no drinking water, no food and no way to use the toilets", said Xia, the Wuhan official, as he waded through a water-logged section of the city.

27 July 1998 - A press report from Singapore, dated today, states: About three million people were mobilised along the Yangtze River yesterday as water levels rose well above danger levels, threatening dozens of cities with serious flooding. The official Xinhua news agency reported that 1.7 million people had gone into action reinforcing dykes in Hunan province as continually rising water levels prepared to cross record highs. It quoted experts as saying that the situation was "extremely critical" as the third flood peak of the season swept down river after passing the Three Gorges Dam site late on Saturday (25 July). Floods across southern China in the past three months have already killed 1,145 people, according to an official toll. Another 340,000 people have been mobilised to look out for dyke bursts along the Yangtze in eastern Jiangsu province. In Wuhan city, water levels continued climbing above the danger line, straining at dykes and threatening about seven million residents. More than 60,000 people were posted around the city to watch for breaches, Xinhua said. The river water level reached 28.6 metres after crossing the official danger mark of 28.28 metres late on Saturday, a flood-control official said. Water levels also broke record highs in nearby Jiujiang city on Saturday. High waters forced officials to slap a temporary ban on navigation on a stretch between Wuhan and the upriver port of Shishou.

27 July 1998 - China's State Flood Control Headquarters has delivered its first shipment of emergency relief materials to millions of residents threatened by flooding along the nation's longest river. The state-run Xinhua news agency says the shipment to residents in devastated Hunan Province contained more than 400 rubber rafts, 800,000 plastic sandbags and 240,000 square yards of cloth for emergency shelters. An additional 300,000 sandbags for making improvised dikes were shipped to stricken Jiangxi Province, on China's east coast. The relief came just days before a third flood peak is expected to hit the already-bloated Yangtze River. Although dikes near major ports held, central government officials are worried the third flood peak will be more difficult to contain. According to the Civil Affairs Bureau, about 140 million people in 12 provinces have already been affected by the floods with total damage estimated at more than US$1 billion.

28 July 1998 - A press report from Singapore, dated today, states: A state of emergency has been declared in China's eastern Jiangxi province, following the breaching of a dyke along the Yangtze River, officials said yesterday. Authorities in Jiujiang declared the emergency late on Sunday (26 July) to enable them to requisition materials and gather the manpower needed to strengthen defences against flood waters which have risen to historic levels. "We are in an emergency situation. All materials can be requisitioned for flood control", said a flood control official. The official said 10,000 cadres had been deployed to patrol a dyke which separated the Yangtze River from the Saicheng Lake. A watch has been kept at the dyke for the past three days, with floodwaters reaching a height of 19.5m. Earlier, the official Xinhua news agency said Jiujiang city - located next to a sharp bend in the river in Jiangxi - was in serious danger. About 100 metres of dykes on Saicheng lake, near the city's western outskirts, had already seen large-scale crumbling under the onslaught of floodwaters. More than four million officials, soldiers and civilians yesterday battled the worst Yangtze River flooding in over 44 years along the length of the river. Record water levels are threatening to overpower the dykes and bring disaster to central China. Water levels were at all-time highs along more than half of the huge river, with the situation most critical in Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan provinces, according to officials quoted by the official China Daily. Water levels at the Dongting Lake in central Hunan province, where about 1.7 million people were battling rising waters, also reached a historical high yesterday, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Meanwhile, the eastern province of Anhui was put on full flood alert as water levels approached their highest levels since 1954, it said.

28 July 1998 - Chinese authorities bracing for more floods have declared a state of emergency in two provinces as the nation-wide death toll from natural disasters this summer passed the 2,500 mark, state media said today. Direct economic losses from natural disasters by 26 July ran up to 153.1 billion Yuan ($18.4 billion), the Ministry of Civil Affairs said. The losses were equivalent to 2.13 percent of last year's gross domestic product. The Ministry of Finance issued an urgent circular yesterday ordering local finance officials to step up supervision to prevent misappropriation or waste of relief funds, the People's Daily said. Anhui and Jiangsu declared a state of emergency yesterday, allowing local authorities to requisition vehicles, materials and personnel for flood relief work. Water levels on the giant Yangtze River have exceeded the danger marks in eastern Jiangsu and central Anhui Provinces, the Xinhua news agency said. The level at Datong measuring station in Jiangsu was approaching 10m, just 0.2m below the record set in 1954, Xinhua said. In Anhui, about 200,000 people have been evacuated from villages along the Yangtze, a local anti-flood official said. Authorities plan to inundate the villages to divert water away from key industrial cities, the official said. The most recent government report on flood casualties, issued on Friday (24 July) by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said 145 people had died in Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi Provinces, bringing the nation-wide summer flooding death toll to more than 1,270. Natural disasters have destroyed 3.86 million houses and forced the relocation of 8.65 million people, the ministry said. More than 3.4 million hectares of crops have been destroyed, the ministry said, adding that another 28.4 million hectares of farmland have been affected, cutting their output by about 30 percent. The ministry said this year's natural disasters, especially floods, were "unexpectedly and unprecedentedly severe" in many areas. In central Hunan Province, the water level at Dongting Lake's Chenglingji hydrological station hit 35.48 metres, breaking the 1996 record of 35.31 metres, Xinhua news agency said. The danger mark is 32 metres. About 1.7 million people had been mobilised to battle floods in Hunan, it said. Disaster-hit areas have received 1.6 billion Yuan in relief funds, the China Daily said. Donations totalling 178 million Yuan and relief materials worth 224.5 million Yuan had been distributed to flood victims, the newspaper said.

29 July 1998 - Floods have killed 2,500 people this year, China said today as a surging crest of water on the swollen Yangtze River threatened to burst embankments on its lower reaches. The new death toll, reported by the official Xinhua news agency, almost doubles the previous figure of more than 1,270 issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs last Friday. Xinhua did not say where the recent deaths occurred. The Yangtze's highest flood peak since 1954, swollen by torrential rains across central China, raged through the middle reaches on Tuesday and was due to pummel flood defences on the lower reaches on Wednesday, the China Daily said. The peak had passed Wuhan, capital of central Hubei province, by this morning and the river's waters had started to fall in the city, Xinhua said. Xinhua quoted Hou Yingjie, head of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, as saying dikes remained largely intact despite widespread termite damage. Officials in central Hunan province had for the moment abandoned plans to blow up dikes around the brimming Dongting Lake to ease flooding downstream, the China Daily said. But a Hunan official said fresh rains had pushed water levels at Chenglingji, mouth of Dongting Lake, to a record 35.5 metres this morning. About 200,000 people were evacuated from around Changde city due to flooding at the western corner of the lake, he said. Further downstream, central Jiangxi and Anhui provinces, which have declared a state of emergency, were bracing for the arrival of the flood crest, Xinhua said. Water levels on the vast Boyang Lake near Jiujiang city in Jiangxi were rising steadily and expected to peak in the next two days, it said. A Jiujiang anti-flood official said the Yangtze's waters reached a record 22.88 metres this morning, but dikes had been reinforced to withstand waters up to 25 metres. Chinese weather officials have forecast torrential rainstorms would subside along the Yangtze over the next few days but rains could continue along the middle and lower reaches until 4 August, the China Daily said. Water levels on the Nenjiang River in north-eastern China and the Xijiang River in southern Guangxi province had also swollen above danger levels and were likely to rise further, it said. The Ministry of Civil Affairs has said direct economic losses from natural disasters by 26 July ran up to 153.1 billion Yuan ($ 18.4 billion).

30 July 1998 - China is stepping up efforts to head off epidemics across its water-logged heartland as the economic toll from flooding along the Yangtze River nears $5.0 billion, state media said today. The Ministry of Health has sent an army of 100,000 doctors and experts to try to prevent possible epidemics in flooded areas, and had appealed to local authorities to increase disease monitoring, the China Daily said. The Health Ministry had earmarked 7.5 million Yuan ($900,000) in special funds for disease prevention in flooded areas, it said. The Ministry of Civil Affairs had estimated the floods had caused 39.7 billion Yuan in economic damage in the central provinces of Hubei and Hunan and eastern Jiangxi province, the China Daily said. The ministry had approved 176 million Yuan for relief efforts, it said. Meanwhile, nearly 2.5 million soldiers and civilians were toiling to reinforce dikes along the raging Yangtze and had mounted a round-the-clock vigil for signs the earth and cement barriers could collapse, state media said. Aerial footage of the Yangtze showed treetops and house roofs poking up out of vast stretches of water where rice paddies and villages once dominated the landscape. In Jinngxi, 1.1 million people were shoring up 150km of embankments along the Yangtze, its waters swollen to the highest levels since 1954, Xinhua said. A crest of water caused by downpours in the upper reaches of the Yangtze hit the river city of Jiujiang yesterday evening, pushing water levels to within 0.6 metre of the 23.5 metre limit of local embankments. In Jinngsu's eastern city of Nanjing, about 250km north-west of Shanghai, heavy rains had caused a dozen dike collapses, complicating flood-fighting efforts as locals braced for the swell rushing down the Yangtze, Xinhua said.

31 July 1998 - Flooding in eastern China was expected to intensify over the next few days as torrential rains hammer the region, weakening water-logged dikes, state media said today. A swell of water on the Yangtze River caused by downpours in the upper reaches was rushing through eastern provinces and bearing down on China's biggest city of Shanghai, officials said. "Flooding will worsen along the Yangtze's mainstream, down from Wuhan, caused by the flood crest", the China Daily newspaper said. Summer rains across vast swathes of central, southern and eastern China triggered floods that have killed at least 2,500 people, left millions homeless and caused at least $4.8 billion in damage. China has also blamed the floods for a drop of 1.1 million tonnes in its summer grain harvest compared to last year and for shearing 0.4 percentage point off first-half economic growth. "The battle against the floodwaters of China's Yangtze River is expected to continue for the next few days", Xinhua quoted Zhang Zhitong, deputy head of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, as saying. White areas upstream have started to recover from rains that pumped the Yangtze's waters up to their highest levels since 1954, there was no sign of relief for those in the lower reaches. Heavy rains were forecast for regions around Dongting Lake in central Hunan province and Boyang Lake in central Jiangxi province, the China Daily quoted hydrologists as saying. Up to 14cm of rain fell on Jiangxi's river port city of Jiujiang yesterday, pushing the Yangtze to just 25cm from the top of the dikes, Xinhua said in an overnight report. Millions of soldiers and civilians have been mobilised to shore up hundreds ofkm of earth and concrete dikes along the river. But revealing incidents of official misdoing, Xinhua said ten officials in Jiangxi had been sacked, detained or censured for failing to take proper anti-flood measures. It gave no further details.

1 August 1998 - A press report from Singapore states: A report from Tongling, Anhui Province, China, states: Dykes along China's Yangtze River began collapsing yesterday as officials warned the month-long fight against the worst flooding in four decades had stretched defences to breaking point. "Water levels are still high, and people and materials have been stretched to breaking point after the month-long battle against the flood", Vice-Premier Wen Jiabao told troops and officials during a tour of flood defences. Meanwhile, "seemingly endless" rainfall had caused dykes in the central Chinese province of Hubei to crumble in hundreds of places, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Millions of peasants, officials and volunteers from the city were camping out in makeshift shacks on the dykes watching for leaks, as soldiers sandbagged potential weak spots frantically. In Jiujiang in eastern Jiangxi province, Saicheng Lake burst its banks despite the efforts of millions of people and engulfed a wide area of farmland, said an officer. The Yangtze River level had risen 1cm in six hours to 22.97m as at 1400 yesterday as the third flood crest passed but the dyke held despite leaks in various places. "We have people taking charge of every kilometre of the dyke, equipped with technical and engineering resources", the officer said. Heavy rains continued to drench cities further down the Yangtze in Hunan and Anhui Provinces yesterday, causing flooding in city streets as drainage systems were overwhelmed. A Foreign Ministry officer in Nefei, the provincial capital of Anhui, said about 300,000 people were mobilised to defend dykes, mainly at Anqing, which would be hit first by the third flood crest.

3 August 1998 - Northern China is scrambling to prepare for flooding as rainstorms that have killed thousands in the country's south and east appear ready to turn their wrath on other regions, state media said today. In the flood-ravaged south, soldiers were ordered to guard major cities along the Yangtze River, with millions of troops and civilians shoring up water-logged embankments, the Xinhua news agency said. Heavy rains along the Yangtze have swollen the river and nearby lakes to the highest levels in more than four decades, killing thousands, driving millions from their homes and causing at least $4.8 billion in damage. Many people had been stranded on narrow patches of high ground for up to 45 days, exhausting meagre supplies salvaged from their wrecked homes and lowering their resistance to disease, Jacobson said. Although Chinese doctors had managed to stave off epidemics by giving out water purification tablets and vaccines, stockpiles of medicines were threatening to run out, he said. The Red Cross had issued an appeal for about $4 million in aid to help flood victims, but had so far only received about one-third of that amount, he said. Rains in the upper reaches of the Yangtze had created a giant swell of water - the fourth such surge since the rains started, Xinhua said. "Although this floodwater is smaller than the previous three, relatively high water levels on the lower and middle reaches of the Yangtze mean flood control efforts will have to be stepped up there", it said. In Hubei province's Jiayu county, 60km south-west of the industrial metropolis of Wuhan, about 50,000 people were trapped when a dyke burst late on Saturday (1 August), inundating villages in a flash-flood, a local official said. "The death toll and economic losses are not clear", the official said, adding that some 2,000 troops, 1,000 boats and three helicopters rushed to the area to evacuate residents. Northern provinces mobilised soldiers, repaired water control facilities and stockpiled sandbags and rafts in anticipation that the storms would soon strike. Residents along the Nen River in Heilongjiang province toiled to reinforce levels, Xinhua said. Shandong and Shaanxi provinces were also bracing for possible floods, it said.

Those provinces have struggled for years with drought and a shrinking Yellow River.

4 August 1998 - China's worst flooding in decades claimed hundreds of new victims when the Yangtze river broke a dike in central Hubei province, washing away a company of soldiers sent to shore up the levee, officials said today. "About 200 people, including soldiers, farmers, labourers and local leaders, were working to protect the dike when it collapsed", said a local official in Hubei's Jiayu county. "Just as several trucks full of troops arrived in response to danger reports, the dike collapsed and they were washed away", he said. The dike broke on Saturday, but the Hubei provincial government imposed a news blackout on flood reports from the county, home to more than half a million people, a second local official said. Earlier today the official Xinhua news agency quoted a flood control official as saying the Yangtze could burst its banks in some 3,200 places and that 1,800 spots could see "major" breaches. "The flood control situation along the Yangtze remains extremely serious and will remain so for the foreseeable future" Xinhua quoted an official of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters as saying. In Jiayu county, water levels were still too high to allow recovery of bodies or a tally of the latest casualties in the worst flooding in China since 1954, the local official said. The Jiayu official said the government's priority was to rescue those trapped by the floods. About 40,000 of the 60,000 residents of submerged villages had been evacuated, he said. "Villages near the dike were evacuated early, but residents far away from the levee learned of the crisis only later", he said.

6 August 1998 - China's flooded Yangtze valley was caught today in the pincers of two deadly storms, as river swells rolled east and a typhoon bore down on it from the coast. Regions along middle reaches of the swollen Yangtze River in Hubei province, among the hardest hit in flooding that has killed thousands of people, were warned to brace for the next crest of China's longest river, Xinhua news agency said. The central government, which has largely kept the nation in the dark about the human and economic toll of China's worst flooding since 1954, is to brief reporters at 1500, (0700, GMT) in Beijing. The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters are hoped to release key information that has been missing in a virtual news blackout in disaster areas and Communist Party-run media which focus mainly on the work of troops and party cadres. Xinhua said the fourth flood crest on the Yangtze was moving down stream from south-western Sichuan province and was expected to pass the Three Gorges Dam Project in Hubei today. The rising tide was bearing down on Hubei, where dikes were in danger of failure at hundreds of points, posing new threats to areas under siege by floods for more than a month, it said, quoting a report from the Ministry of Water Resources.

6 August 1998 - Devastating summer floods in China killed more than 2,000 people by 3 August and affected 240 million people. "More than 2,000 people have died from floods and water-logging since the beginning of June", Vice Minister of Civil Affairs Fan Baojun said today. Heavy rains have lashed central and eastern China for weeks, pushing rivers and lakes to record highs and causing the worst flooding since 1954. Floods, landslides and mud-flows had affected 240 million people, of whom 13.8 million had been relocated to safer areas, the official Xinhua news agency quoted Fan as saying. Flooding swept down 5.58 million houses and damaged 12.05 million others, Fan said. The floods had also affected 21.53 million hectares of farmland and destroyed 4.78 million hectares of crops, he said. China has said floods slashed summer grain output by 11 million tonnes compared with last year and shaved 0.4 percent off economic growth. China's central government had provided more than Yuan 1.9 billion ($229 million) in relief funds, while local governments had allocated a further Yuan 720 million, Xinhua said.

7 August 1998 - Authorities in central China are evacuating more than half a million people as they prepare to blow up dikes to divert a crest of water raging down the Yangtze River, officials and state media said today. "We are preparing to blow up dikes to ease flood pressure on Wuhan", said a flood prevention official in Gongan county, 200km west of Hubei province's capital, Wuhan. Gongan was expected to bear the brunt of flooding if waters were diverted. A swell of water, which surged through Hubei's Yichang city yesterday afternoon, was expected to hit Shashi city, 150km upstream of Gongan, by this afternoon, the official said. "If water levels in Shashi rise to 45.5 metres from the current 44.8 metres, we will blow up dikes", the official said by telephone. Hubei declared a state of emergency yesterday as the tide threatened to burst dikes at hundreds of points and inundate areas battered by floods for over a month, state media said. Flood-control workers have allowed some dikes to collapse to channel waters away from major cities, officials have said. Authorities abandoned five dikes near Hubei's Jinzhou city late yesterday and early today, evacuating 100,000 people from the area, a Hubei flood control official said.

8 August 1998 - Workers in China's central Hubei province remain on alert to blow up dikes in a bid to spare cities down river from the worst of recent flooding which has already killed more than 2,000 people, officials said on Saturday. They said the workers had decided not to blow up a key dike as a crest of water on the swollen Yangtze River raged past and headed for the flood-racked lower reaches. About 370km to the east, residents of Jiujiang city in central Jiangxi province were bracing for the flood crest while battling a widening breach in the city's flood defences, residents and officials said. Workers in Hubei's Gong'an county said water levels had receded slightly on Saturday afternoon to 44.89 metres from a high of 44.94 metres earlier in the day. But water levels were only centimetres short of the 45-metre mark at which officials have said they would blow up the dike to divert flood waters that could devastate Hubei's capital Wuhan, an industrial hub further downstream. Torrential rains have lashed central and eastern China for weeks and pushed rivers and lakes to their highest levels since 1954, triggering the devastating floods, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. More than 520,000 residents have been evacuated from Gong'an to nearby Jingzhou city in preparation for flood diversions, the China Youth News said. In Jiujiang, a breach in an embankment grew this afternoon to 60 metres from 40 metres after a barge sent to help plug the hole lost control and missed its target, ripping away more concrete, state media said. The swollen waters had submerged 4 sqkm of the city's western quarter, Xinhua news agency said. A Jiujiang official said the greater part of the city, which has a total population of 500,000, remained dry. "The fundamental situation is stable", he said. Other cities along the Yangtze, China's longest river, are being hammered by storms travelling inland from southern and eastern China. In south-western Chongqing, 41 people were killed and another 41 were missing after torrential downpours on Friday caused deadly mudflows and rock slides, state media reported. Another l56 were injured in the storm.

9 August 1998 - Officials in China's Hubei province destroyed some secondary dikes along the Yangtze River today, in a bid to spare seven million people in the provincial capital Wuhan from floods, state media reported. Dikes were blown up in Jianli county, 150km upstream from Wuhan, after about 50,000 residents were evacuated, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Anti-flood officials hoped the blasting would divert 800 million cubic metres of water and lower the Yangtze River by 10-25cm above Wuhan, sparing the city from floods. Xinhua said local officials had been unable to destroy some dikes yesterday, as planned, because some local villagers were reluctant to move. A swell in the Yangtze passed beleaguered Gong'an as expected but was smaller than feared. However, Xinhua said the government was still pondering a major diversion scheme to blast part of the main dike on the Yangtze at Gong'an county. More than two million people were battling to reinforce dikes along the Yangtze and Dongting Lake. In downstream Jiangxi province, efforts to block a 60-metre breach in a key dike in Jiujiang city were being hampered by a lack of experience and equipment, Xinhua said. Flood fighters had sunk eight barges and dumped truckloads of rocks, rice and soybeans into the breach, slowing down the water flow by as much as one third, Xinhua quoted an army flood expert as saying. But the operation could take another 24 hours, the expert said, raising doubts that the breach would be mended before the flood crest hit Jiujiang, a city down river from Wuhan where thousands of residents had been evacuated or ordered to move to higher floors.

9 August 1998 - Officials in China's Hubei province destroyed some secondary dikes along the Yangtze River today to try to avert killer floods threatening seven million people in the provincial capital Wuhan, state media reported. Dikes were blown up in Jianli county, 150km upstream from Wuhan, after about 50,000 residents were evacuated, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Despite the efforts, the Yangtze's turbulent brown waters continued to climb higher, maintaining the threat of floods hanging over Wuhan, a major industrial centre, it said. A local official said that a fresh crest of China's longest river passed Jiayu, some 50km upriver from Wuhan. The flood peak passed Jiayu, site of a dike rupture on 1 August in which state media said 19 soldiers were washed away, but flood defences had remained intact. "The basic situation is okay and there is no serious flooding", he said by telephone after the crest had passed this afternoon.

10 August 1998 - Rising floodwaters on China's swollen Yangtze River today sent residents and troops scrambling to shore up flood defences after Premier Zhu Rongji warned that more dikes were in danger of bursting. "The flood situation is very serious on the Yangtze River", the China Daily quoted Zhu as saying yesterday during a tour of Jingzhou city in central Hubei province. "There is a high possibility of cave-ins and crumbling along the main river dikes because of the long soaking period", the newspaper quoted Zhu as saying. Zhu's words amounted to the strongest government warning yet on the floods, which have killed more than 2,000 people, affected 240 million and knocked agriculture and industry at a time of flagging economic growth. The last official estimate several weeks ago said the floods had caused $4.8 billion in damage, had cut the summer grain harvest by 11 million tonnes from last year's and shaved 0.4 percent off first-half economic performance. In Hubei province alone, agricultural losses had hit Yuan 26 billion ($3.1 billion) as of 2 August, a spokesman for the provincial government said. Heavy rains swelled the Yellow River, in the north-east, past danger levels today, and a new tropical storm closed in on southern Guangdong province. "Moderate to heavy rains are also expected to hit large parts of southern, south-western, central, north-eastern and northern China", Xinhua said but gave no details. As a massive crest of water bore down on Hubei's provincial capital of Wuhan, flood workers evacuated tens of thousands of people upstream before blowing up dikes to funnel water into special diversion zones, the Xinhua news agency said. In Gong'an county, 190km south-west of Wuhan, 110,000 of the 513,000 people living in the diversion area had been evacuated, Xinhua said. Flood workers in Honghu city, 115km south-west of Wuhan, had left 12 secondary dikes to implode in a desperate attempt to lower water levels on the river, it said. Xinhua said the crest had pushed water levels at Honghu up to 34.63 metres. A weekend (8-9 August) plan to blow up dikes in Jianli county had been delayed until today because of resistance from villagers, apparently upset at being forced to abandon their homes. While Wuhan, with its sturdy concrete and earthen dikes, is well fortified against the river's rolling waters, nearly 14 million people have fled other cities and villages that have borne the brunt of this year's floods. Downstream from Wuhan in Jiujiang city, which has been one of the areas hardest hit, soldiers were close to plugging a 60-metre gap which burst through a local dike. Soldiers had sunk eight vessels in a 90 metre-long "U" shape, creating a makeshift dam to slow the rush of water into the city, Xinhua said. "The sunken boats are full of rock, rice, soybeans and whatever materials were at hand", Xinhua quoted Liu Yizhong, an official of the Jiujiang Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, as saying.

11 August 1998 - Heavy rains continued to pound the upper reaches of China's Yangtze River today, drenching hopes that the nation's worst flood season in decades would soon end. Meteorologists in the south-west province of Sichuan said the torrential rain would continue throughout the week, renewing fears in the downstream industrial hub of Wuhan. The waterlogged central city survived a fourth flood crest yesterday, but dikes and embankments protecting Wuhan's seven million people were near collapse. Flood experts today told the state-run China Daily that many of the city's levees had been soaked by floodwaters for more than 40 days, rendering them "very vulnerable". They cautioned against complacency and urged "constant efforts" on the part of residents and soldiers manning the dikes. The state media has also revealed central government plans to divert the floodwaters from Wuhan if the situation becomes dire. More than 500,000 people in nearby Gongan county were evacuated in case the diversion became necessary. Residents along the swollen Yangtze River have been bracing for record floods since March, when snow in the highlands of Tibet and Qinghai provinces began melting earlier than usual. Heavy rains resulting from the El Nino weather phenomena have exacerbated the annual tragedy. This year's flood season has already claimed more than 2,000 lives and inundated 21 million hectares of farmland, leading to economic losses in excess of $1 billion.

12 August 1998 - China's floods have spread to northern China killing 14 people and leaving 20 missing and more than 17,300 stranded, official media reported today. About 760,000 people had been affected by floods in Inner Mongolia, the China Economic Times reported, as water levels along the Yangtze river in central China started to recede. Inner Mongolia is the latest to be hit by what officials are now calling China's worst flooding since 1931. More than 2,000 people have died, mostly along the Yangtze river in central China, according to a week-old official figure. Flood waters from the Hulin river in Inner Mongolia have stranded 15,000 since Monday (10 August), the China Daily said without giving details. A burst dike on the nearby Nen river trapped another 2,300, the newspaper said. The Beijing Youth Daily said 23 tourists from Beijing, 60 armed police and an undetermined number of local residents were trapped without food, potable water or medicine in Inner Mongolia's Jirem prefecture. At least one air rescue mission has been attempted in the Jarud division of the prefecture, the newspaper said. Four military aircraft were dispatched from Beijing to drop food, medicine and more than ten rubber rafts on the site, the newspaper said. Along the Yangtze river valley, authorities said they were taking advantage of receding water levels to reinforce makeshift dams built after several breaches in flood defences. Rain has continued to pound the upper reaches of the river, threatening future flood crests, Xinhua news agency reported.

13 August 1998 - Floods in north-eastern China are threatening millions of people in the country's industrial heartland, while in the south a fresh flood peak is rushing down the Yangtze River, officials and state media said today. "The swollen Songhua River is posing a threat to a million people near Harbin, capital of north-east China's Heilongjiang province and a major industrial centre and grain production base", the China Daily said. Some 2.5 million people were patrolling the Songhua's banks to watch for potential breaches as a third flood peak on the river triggered by heavy rains upstream rolled towards Harbin, the newspaper said. Floods this summer have killed more than 2,000 people, affected 240 million and submerged 21.53 million hectares (54.2 million acres) of farmland, according to week-old official statistics. Deeper north in Heilongjiang province on the Nen River, which merges with the Songhua before passing Harbin, the heavy waters were weakening dikes protecting the industrial city of Qiqihaer, it said. "Some dikes made by farmers were destroyed by the floods, which caused some farmland to be submerged", said an official with the Qiqihaer Flood-Control Headquarters. "Factories are not affected", the official said, adding there were no reports of deaths or injuries. But in a further sign of the widening impact of the floods on the economy, Heilongjiang's Daqing oil fields, the nation's largest crude producer, had shut more than 1,000 wells because of waterlogging, a Daqing official said. The floods were also threatening 52 rare Siberian tigers in a breeding centre in Harbin, the Xinhua news agency said. City authorities had made emergency plans to evacuate the beasts to another wild animal breeding centre more than 120 miles away, Xinhua quoted Liu Xingchen, head of the tiger centre, as saying. Down south, flood workers on the Yangtze River in central China scored a major victory in bringing nature's fury under control, finally plugging a giant hole in a dike that had inundated Jiujiang city. "Soldiers successfully put up a framework by striking hundreds of steel pipes into the breach, and sandbags and other filling materials were added to the framework to plug the breach completely", Xinhua said. But there was still no sign of respite for the millions of soldiers and civilians mobilised across China to battle the floods. The Yangtze's fifth flood peak of the year had passed Yichang city, site of the gargantuan Three Gorges Dam project, with the river's flow hitting a year-high peak of 2.2 million cubic foot a second. Before the peak came, the city organised 85,000 workers to protect the embankment at a spot where a landslide occurred, Xinhua said. It gave no details except that the dikes were holding. In a sign the weeks of flooding were eroding law and order, the Supreme People's Court yesterday called for a crackdown on people who preyed on flood victims or obstructed relief work, Xinhua said. "Courts at all levels should give priority to cases occurring amid the flood-fighting, and especially cases of destruction of public facilities, stealing, robbing or raping flood victims", Xinhua quoted a court notice as saying. China's propaganda tsar Ding Guan'gen had called on state-run media to "provide moral support" to flood workers, Xinhua said. "More should be done to highlight the civilians, soldiers and officials fighting the floods, and the relief efforts nation-wide", Xinhua quoted Ding as saying.

14 August 1998 - Chinese state media today broke a long silence on the death toll in a city hit by a major breach in Yangtze River flood defences and reported that 78 have died in eastern Jiujiang. "According to preliminary figures of the 3.46 million people affected by floods in the city, 28,600 have been injured or made ill, and 78 have died", the China News Service said. Jiujiang city, in eastern Jiangxi province, was the site of a week-long struggle involving tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians to close a 60 metre breach in a protective dike. Repair work on the breach was finished earlier this week, but the city's west side remained under water, state media said. Exact figures on the number of people killed by China's worst floods in at least 44 years are elusive. The publicised official estimate, more than a week old, put the number killed at "more than 2,000". However, isolated reports of people drowned, swept away in mudslides, and sickened by polluted drinking water suggested the true number was far higher. Forecasters predicted that a new round of downpours would inundate major river systems over the next five days, the People's Daily said. The Huai and Yellow river basins and the central Hanshui River which feeds into the Yangtze River could expect heavy to torrential rains by 18 August, the newspaper quoted the State Meteorological Station as saying. Rain was expected to continue on 19-20 August in northern China and along the Hanshui River in central Hubei province, it said. Both Hubei and Henan provinces could expect "big to torrential rains" today and tomorrow, it said. China's most populous city Chongqing, situated between the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze, was also expected to be hit by rains today or tomorrow, it said. State television said today that a fifth flood crest had passed through the Jingjiang network without incident and that dikes were being inspected for weak points in preparation for high waters brought by rains this weekend (15-16 August).

14 August 1998 - A surging torrent on the Nen River, in Heilongjiang province, pushed water levels in Qiqihaer city to new highs early today, before bursting a dyke near Daqing oilfield, China's largest, the official Xinhua news agency said. In central Jiangxi province, residents of Jiujiang city had begun to return to their waterlogged homes after flood workers blocked a 60-metre breach in a key dyke on the Yangtze River, Xinhua said. In the north-east, workers at Daqing oilfield were working round the clock to build new flood defences after the raging Nen ripped a 500-metre (1,640ft) hole in a nearby dyke. The breach is too big to be blocked, a local official said. More than 20,000 people were evacuated from the area before the dyke burst and some 200,000 people were working on Daqing's flood defences, Xinhua said. Daqing said yesterday, it closed more than 1,000 oil wells because of water logging after recent floods but an official declined to say what impact the closures would have on output. Swollen waters on the Liaohe and Raoyang rivers in north-eastern Liaoning province also forced the Liaohe oilfield to shut some 870 oil wells, cutting daily output by 3,000 tonnes per day, the China Oil Daily reported. Weathermen warned that more rains would pound the Liaohe early next week, whipping up a flood peak which would endanger six hydroelectric power stations along the river, Xinhua said. Flooding on the Nen in the northern region of Inner Mongolia had left 410,000 people homeless and almost 10,000 stranded, it said, adding that water levels were expected to rise further.

16 August 1998 - Three dykes have burst along the Nen river in north-east China, threatening the country's largest oilfield of Daqing nearby, an anti-flood official and state media said today. About 200,000 soldiers and civilians have been reinforcing flood defences near Daqing in Heilongjiang province, where water logging has closed 355 oil wells and reduced daily output by 807 tonnes, the People's Daily and Xinhua news agency said, after the first dyke breach measuring 500 metres wide last Friday. A second breach, measuring 20 metres wide along a 2.7km levee in ZhaoYuan county, has inundated 13,333 hectares of farmland, Xinhua said yesterday. "The water, if not effectively blocked, will pose a threat to the oilfield and a railway", the news agency said. Flood workers have given up efforts to repair the two breaches, Xinhua said. An anti-flood official said a third dyke collapsed near Daqing today, but played down the threat to the oilfield. The official said it would take 1 and 1/2 days for flood waters to reach a highway where a new dike is being built as a defence against the floods. No casualties have been reported. Up to 60,000 people have been evacuated, he said. In central China, the Yangtze River's worst flooding in 44 years has killed at least 2,000 people and left tens of millions homeless. Damage has been estimated at $24 billion and the figure is likely to rise. As torrential rains sweep across northern and north-eastern China, the industrial city of Harbin near Daqing is bracing for its worst flooding since 1949, Xinhua said. Water control experts forecast that in about one week the water level on the Songhua River flowing past the city would rise to a record 120.3 metres or 2.2 metres above the danger level, it said. Harbin has imposed curfew at several sections of the Songua River embankments, the agency said. About 500,000 soldiers and civilians have been reinforcing river embankments and thousands of residents have been evacuated, Xinhua said. The State Council, or cabinet, has issued a circular calling for diligence in efforts to prevent epidemics after the waters subside, the agency said. Efforts should also be made to protect water resources and sterilise drinking water, the circular said. In northern Inner Mongolia, about 70,000 people stranded by floods have been rescued but another 76,000 were still marooned along the banks of the Ulyji Muren River, Xinhua said. The floods have damaged a railway bridge and washed away 200 metres of railway roadbed, forcing the Tongliao-Ranghulu railway to suspend operations, it said. In Jiujiang city in central Jiangxi province, villagers began returning to their homes after flood fighters plugged a 60 metre breach in a dyke on the Yangtze River. Chinese meteorologists have forecast light to torrential rains for the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze and its tributary rivers over the next few days.

17 August 1998 - Tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers piled up sandbags today in a desperate "life and death" effort to save the country's biggest oil field and a major city from raging floodwaters, state media reported. A swollen reservoir threatened to overflow and send a wall of water over the Daqing fields in the north-east which account for one half of China's domestic oil production. The water level in the reservoir had passed the danger level and was lapping just a few feet below the top of a dam, one oilfield official said. Soldiers and civilians were racing against time to build a two-metre embankment of sandbags to protect the city of Daqing and its 2.4 million population. Water levels were rising again on the Yangtze river in central China, presenting local officials with another agonising decision about whether to blow up dikes to spare the industrial city of Wuhan. There was no relief in sight, with weather officials predicting that many of China's flood-stricken areas would be hit by heavy rains for 24 hours from tonight. Official figures estimate that the floods have killed more than 2,000 people and affected 240 million. Damage has been estimated at $24 billion. The immediate concern today was the oil-rich Daqing region of Heilongjiang province where production has already been seriously affected. "About 80 percent of oil wells are in the middle and north of Daqing, so if the dam of the reservoir bursts all these oil fields will be affected", a Daqing oilfield official said. "If the reservoir is breached, floodwater will roar into the Daqing oilfield, causing disastrous losses", the official Xinhua news agency quoted another oilfield official as saying. Raging river waters have breached three dikes along the Nen river which skirts the oilfields, according to local officials. Water levels at the Iieiyutao reservoir, 10km from Daqing city, were at 149.94 metres, nearing the rim of the 151 metre tall dam, a Daqing oilfield official said. Floods had inundated 1,217 of Daqing's 25,000 oil wells, closing 527 of them, oilfield officials said. Nearly 11,600 oil workers and residents were trapped without power, water or food, Xinhua said. Boats had rescued 1,000 people. No casualties were reported, but one local official said yesterday that up to 60,000 people had been evacuated from flooded areas. The nearby industrial city of Harbin has imposed a 24-hour curfew along a 26km stretch of dikes on the Songhua river since 13 August. About 500,000 people were reinforcing dikes near Harbin and the Songhua, fed by the Nen, was expected to rise 2.2 metres over danger marks this week, the China Daily said. In central Hubei province, fresh downpours on the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze had sent a new flood peak towards the provincial capital Wuhan, state media said. One local official said authorities were ready to blow up a 1km stretch of dikes along the Yangtze with 100 explosions, diverting floods into a flood diversion zone in Gongan county to protect downstream Wuhan, a city of seven million people. Early this month, 500,000 people were evacuated from Gongan county after China's cabinet decided to blow up dikes if water levels hit 45 metres. A Gongan flood prevention official said water levels had reached 45.22 metres this morning and were rising, but authorities were awaiting orders to blow the dikes. The official said heavy rain pounded Gongan this morning and that today and tomorrow would be the critical period as the flood peak passed through the area.

18 August 1998 - Troops today prepared to blow up more dikes in central China but were building new ones in the north-east as part of desperate waterworks surgery to defend a major city and the heart of the oil industry from floods. In central Hubei province, 335,000 people were evacuated from Gongan county as authorities considered blowing up dikes to drain water from the Yangtze river and save the downstream provincial capital of Wuhan, the Xinhua news agency said. Half a million people lived in the Jingjiang emergency reservoir zone covering 921 squarekm along the Yangtze's southern bank, Xinhua said. "The situation on this section of the Yangtze is still serious", Xinhua said. Upstream in Shishou county, authorities had recently blasted half a dozen dikes to funnel waters into reservoirs, the China News Service said. The agency said the last-ditch tactic had sacrificed 13,355 hectares of farmland to help protect Wuhan, home to seven million people and thousands of factories. In north-eastern China's Heilongjiang province, soldiers scrambled to build a makeshift earth dike protecting the vital Daqing oilfields after floodwaters burst nearby river embankments. The military had sent 1,000 soldiers and officers to plug a ten-metre breach discovered on Sunday (16 August) in a secondary flood barrier along the Nen River, Xinhua said. "Despite emergency repairs by civilians and soldiers, the rupture had widened to 50 metres by noon yesterday, because of the powerful current and a lack of filling materials", the China Daily newspaper said. Some 9,000 workers were dumping sandbags and rocks into a breach in another section of the secondary embankment near the oilfield, Xinhua said in an overnight report. Some 1,500 soldiers and workers from the oilfield had joined forces to build a third barrier to stave off rushing waters. Floods had closed 1,809 wells in Daqing, cutting daily production by 3,724 tonnes, the China Oil News said today. Previous reports had estimated that 1,217 of Daqing's 25,000 wells had been forced to close. "Some of the wells at the border were inundated", said an official with the Daqing Oilfield Anti-flood Office. "However, the water will not reach the main oil producing areas today", the official said. "Workers and soldiers are trying to block up the third dike". Daqing officials said a swollen reservoir on the northern edge of the field posed another threat. Flood control workers upstream from Daqing were preparing to divert water on to grassy plains to try to keep the reservoir from overflowing, he said. In Heilongjiang's capital, Harbin, flooding along the Songhua River had destroyed more than 6,000 rural houses and forced the evacuation of 28,000 people, Xinhua said. More than 300,000 soldiers and civilians were patrolling levees along the Songhua, plugging leaks and buttressing embankments against major flooding expected to hit the city tomorrow, it said.

19 August 1998 - China's north-eastern industrial heartland is bracing for record waters as the worst floods in decades prompt Beijing to try to stabilise prices and battle outbreaks of disease, state media said today. A third surge of water barrelling down the Songhua River was expected to hit Harbin on Friday and push water levels to a record 120.6 metres, the China Daily said. Some 200,000 flood workers were toiling to raise the city's dikes by 1.5 metres, a Harbin flood official said. A series of summer flood crests on the river have pounded at the edge of Harbin, home to about three million people and some of China's biggest industrial concerns. While Harbin has so far been spared the wrath of the floods, many other parts of the province have not been so lucky. The raging Songhua had destroyed three sluice gates at Qunli township 50km from Harbin, the China Daily said. Soldiers and local residents had rushed to plug the breaches with sandbags, stones and boards, but had proved no match for the rushing waters, it said. "The repair efforts were inadequate and the local government decided to abandon the effort", it said. Flooding also continued to take its toll along Yangtze River. "Environmental pollution in the flooded areas will increase the possibility of epidemic diseases in the coming months", the China Daily quoted senior officials as saying. "The incidence of intestinal disease is on the increase in flooded areas, but major epidemic diseases have not yet appeared", the newspaper quoted Health Minister Zhang Wenkang as saying. Vice Premier Li Lanqing had urged health workers to ensure the quality of food and water and warned officials not to misuse medical equipment intended to help flood victims, it said. Hinting at the economic turmoil the floods have caused, Xinhua news agency said the State Development and Planning Commission had called for efforts to stabilise prices and punish hoarding and speculation. An urgent circular empowered provincial pricing departments to impose price caps on foodstuffs and building materials, Xinhua said in an overnight report. "Severe punishment will be dealt to those units and individuals engaged in hoarding and speculation and to those who randomly raise products and traffic prices and charge arbitrary fees", it quoted the circular as saying. At the Daqing oilfield in Heilongjiang the situation was grim, with breaches along the Nen River threatening to submerge the heart of China's oil industry, state media said. Motionless oil derricks rose out of a lake as soldiers and workers checked the equipment, according to pictures shown on state television. The floods had forced the closure of 1,809 of Daqing's more than 25,000 wells, state media have reported. An official with the Daqing oilfield Anti-Flood Office said emergency measures to drain water from a crucial reservoir that had threatened to overflow and inundate Daqing were successful. "In the upper reaches of the Shuangyang River, we blocked up some bridges and culverts and diverted the swollen water into uninhabited grasslands so less water would flow into the reservoir", the official said.

20 August 1998 - A new flood crest surged towards China's north-eastern city of Harbin today, punching holes in dykes, while troops across China fought to hold back raging waters in the biggest military mobilisation since 1949. Harbin has become the new front line in a battle to stem floods that have ravaged vast swathes of rural China, killing 2,000 people by official count but several times that number according to unofficial reports. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been hauling sandbags, bailing water, digging earth dykes and leading the evacuation of millions of people from inundated areas. Life in Harbin appeared more or less normal, despite the threat of further rain and the anticipated arrival of the new flood crest tomorrow, the China Daily said. "In the city's Central Avenue, a bustling area just 500 metres away from the flooded river and two metres below the water level, a happy couple held their wedding ceremony yesterday", the article said. "Prices of meat, egg and vegetables remain stable", it said. A Harbin flood control official said 62 gates regulating water flow between the Songhua river and city canals had been ordered shut, since the river's level was higher than low-lying areas of the city. A front-page photograph in the China Youth Daily showed Central Avenue lined with sandbags. A monument to fighters of devastating floods in 1957 towered in the background. "There are about 100 metres of dykes that are weakening within the city", the Harbin official said, adding that the water level was now at a record level. But he said he was confident the situation in the city would remain under control. Major industrial cities have been spared the brunt of the destruction. Authorities have made clear they will take extreme measures, including blowing up dykes to flood farmland, rather than let cities sink. Several major diversion projects in the Yangtze river in central and eastern China have submerged millions of hectares to spare Wuhan and other cities downstream. Similar diversion plans had been drawn up to save Harbin, the China Daily said. North-west of Harbin, workers and soldiers were still fighting to protect the Daqing oil fields, the heart of China's energy industry. A Daqing official said the Shuangyang River was sluicing into grasslands after it was diverted away from the Daqing Reservoir. The strength of dykes around the bloated reservoir were key to protecting the fields, he said. "The dykes there and along the southern field are firm. It should be able to keep the water away from the wells", he said. All railway traffic was suspended in Daqing after floods damaged a long stretch of track, Xinhua said. Daqing's largest oil field has so far escaped flood damage that shut down neighbouring wells. The summer floods that have raged for nearly two months in China have cost an estimated $24 billion, according to the State Statistical Bureau. Chinese reporters have privately estimated that more than 10,000 people have died. China's government denied that figure, sticking to its several-week old figure of 2,000. China's state owned insurance giant, the People's Insurance Company of China, has so far paid out 716 million Yuan ($86.3 million) for flood losses by enterprises, Xinhua said - Reuter.

21 August 1998 - An army of Chinese troops and civilians used buckets and pans to bail out a riverside park in Harbin today, but dikes mostly held firm as a flood crest churned past the city. President Jiang Zemin postponed trips to Japan and Russia scheduled for early next month to help direct the fight against floods that have ravaged vast swathes of China. He made the decision "due to the immensity of flood control and disaster relief efforts in China", the official Xinhua news agency reported. Some 400,000 troops and civilians have fought a backbreaking battle to defend Harbin and its nine million people by throwing up barriers of sandbags. A flood crest on the Songhua river arrived at around noon, but the dikes held despite record high water levels. Raging torrents carrying mud, logs and debris have severed Harbin's train link with the nearby oil city of Daqing and inundated sections of a major highway, now closed to all but heavy military vehicles.

13 July 1998 - Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan

Keyword: Floods

Ninety-three people have been killed in heavy flooding in Uzbekistan but the real death toll could be much higher, officials said today. "Ninety-three corpses have been delivered to morgues", said an officer from the Uzbek Defence Ministry's rescue detachment. "The actual death toll may be larger", he added. Health Ministry officials confirmed the figure. "Some of those who survived the flood might have died after being brought to hospitals", one health official said. Earlier government estimates had put the death toll in the flood last Wednesday (8 July) in the former Soviet Republic's Fergana Valley at 75. Around 14,000 people have been evacuated. Officials say thawing ice and snow in a mountainous area of neighbouring Kyrgyzstan caused the Shakhimardan River to overflow its banks and surge down into Uzbekistan's vast Fergana Valley. Torrents of mud and water bearing huge boulders smashed into wooden and clay huts and other dwellings. The river's water levels rose three to four metres above normal. Reporters saw houses and bridges in ruins and many roads were badly damaged. The Central Asian mission of the International Red Cross Federation based in Kazakhstan's commercial capital Almaty reported widespread destruction and suffering in the disaster area. "Four hundred people from 53 families lost absolutely everything", it said in a statement, quoting one of its workers in the area. "Another 100 people were made homeless and another 5,000 had their homes damaged on the Kyrgyzstan side of the border". Only one person a young girl, is reported to have died on the Kyrgyz side.

17 July 1998 - The Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan has appealed for international assistance after last week's floods in which the Red Cross says up to 600 people are missing or feared dead. The United Nations said in Geneva today that the government of the former Soviet country asked the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs to launch the appeal for disaster relief. The Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said Uzbek officials reported at least 98 dead in the floods that hit east Uzbekistan and the Fergana Valley bordering Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan reported at least 12 killed. Officials say thawing ice and snow in a mountainous area of neighbouring Kyrgyzstan caused a lake to overflow, adding to water levels along the Shakhimardan River which eventually broke its banks causing widespread destruction.

15 July 1998 - Dhaka, Bangladesh

Keyword: Floods

Flooding caused by heavy rain has killed another 17 people in Bangladesh as weather officials today warned that the worst was yet to come. Officials said at least 12 people died in the 24 hours ending at 1800 hrs (1200, UTC) yesterday in the northern districts of Gaibandha and Bogra as well as in Cox's Bazar in the south-east. Five people also died in the north earlier this week, local officials told reporters. Transport links between the port city of Chittagong and Cox's Bazar and the Chittagong Hill Tracts region were cut after the flooding destroyed small bridges. The flood warning centre in Dhaka said yesterday that the situation across the country might deteriorate further with the continuing rise of water levels in all major rivers. Officials said nearly 150,000 people have been stranded in their half-submerged homes and thousands have taken shelter on higher ground. In all, they said over half a million people had been affected by the second spell of flooding this month. But the officials were expecting only minimal agricultural losses as there are virtually no crops awaiting harvest at this time of year. Major rivers including the Brahmaputra, Ganges and Meghna have risen above their flood levels while other rivers were also in high spate, Water Development Board officials said. Floods earlier this month killed 29 people in south-eastern Bangladesh, according to official figures. Weather officials said more rains were expected.

18 July 1998 - At least 33 people have been killed and nearly half a million made homeless or marooned by floods in Bangladesh in the past week, officials said today. The death toll rose overnight after three people died when a house collapsed in the northern district of Jamalpur, they said. Most of the other casualties were caused by mudslides, drownings or snake bites. Disaster Management and Relief Ministry officials said the floods, triggered by heavy monsoon rains, affected half a million people in 24 of the country's 64 districts. They said at least half of these were stranded in their flooded homes trying to save their livestock. Agriculture officials said there had been no serious crop damage. Ministry officials said army engineers were trying to repair breaches in the Gumti River embankment protecting eastern Comilla town and a gas field. Officials said conditions in the worst affected district of Cox's Bazar in the south-east had improved. The road link between Cox's Bazar and the port of Chittagong, cut for four days by floodwaters, was restored today. The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre said today that the main rivers in, south-eastern Bangladesh had started subsiding after the rain eased off. It said flooding might worsen elsewhere as the Ganges and Meghna rivers were continuing to rise.

22 July 1998 - Incessant rains have worsened floods in Bangladesh, inundating new areas and raising the death toll to 78, officials said today. Another six deaths were reported today from the north-eastern district of Sylhet, including four people drowned when a boat sank in the flooded Surma River. The officials said more than seven million people were affected by the floods sweeping 35 of the country's 64 administrative districts. Most of the deaths were due to drowning, houses collapsing and mudslides. Two people died of snake bites in the country's north, one official in the badly-hit district of Gaibandha said. The Surma breached a flood protection embankment at Kanaighat, in Sylhet, today, deluging dozens of villages. "Some 50,000 people have been marooned by water rushing through the breach", one official said. The nearby town of Chhatak was under knee-deep water today, while the Lakhai area of Sunamganj district had been cut off from the rest of the country after a highway was flooded. Authorities have closed all schools in the flood-hit Sylhet area for an indefinite period, local journalist Abdus Sattar said. Unofficial sources said more than 100 people had died since the current round of flooding began more than a week ago. Officials said more than 600,000 people were stranded in their half-submerged homes, while many were forced to live in the open after their houses collapsed or were swept away by floodwater. Weather officials said they recorded up to 150mm of rain in some areas in 24 hours ending at 0600 (0001, UTC) today. More rains are expected, they said. "The situation will continue to deteriorate in the northern, north-western, central and north-eastern districts over the next 48 hours", said one disaster management official. The government has already alerted security forces, including paramilitary guards, to be on standby to provide emergency assistance, he said.

23 July 1998 - Catastrophic floods in Bangladesh have spread to the north of the country and people marooned in remote villages are faced with starvation, officials said today. The monsoon fed floods have killed at least 84 people across the country, officials from the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre said. They said fresh areas, mainly in the northern part of the country, had been flooded after 24 hours of continuous rain, which ended at 0600, local time, today. Flood monitors with the water development board said that all Bangladesh's rivers were above their danger levels and were expected to continue rising. The popular Bengali daily Janakantha put the death toll higher. Quoting officials in the affected areas, it said at least 122 people had died. Most of the deaths have been from drowning and landslides but there is now a threat of starvation for people marooned in remote villages unless aid can reach them, officials told reporters. Over seven million people have been affected, including more than 600,000 marooned in their half submerged homes, relief operators said. Others put the number of flood victims at nearly ten million. The country has a population of 124 million. The rain-fed Jamuna river washed away part of an embankment in Betagoir village north of Dhaka yesterday, flooding the homes of some 70,000 people, local officials said. The government has already alerted security forces including paramilitary guards to be on standby to provide any emergency assistance, he said. Newspaper reports said that there had been outbreaks of diarrhoea and fever in many flood-hit areas. They said some district administrations had done what they could with limited resources, but said the government needed to do more. Officials said they did not anticipate major agricultural losses because most crops had been harvested before the flooding started.

24 July 1998 - Bangladesh put its army on full alert today as devastating floods hit two thirds of the country, officials said. They said more than 90 people had died and some 10 million were suffering the effects of the flooding, including one million marooned in remote districts who were facing shortages of food and drinking water. As part of contingency plans, the army was standing by to evacuate marooned villagers. "The Army is on stand-by for emergency rescue operations", a Relief Ministry official said. Officials in the flood-hit districts said 93 people were killed, most of them by collapsing houses and drowning. But unofficial sources quoted by newspapers put the death toll at nearly 140. Officials in the northern district of Mymensingh said some 20 people were missing after a boat capsized on the flooded Kangsha river yesterday. District administrator Rafiqul Islam confirmed the incident but said the number of casualties was still unknown. "We are trying to find out exactly what is the death figure", he said. Newspapers said thousands of people had moved into shelters and many others were camped out on the roofs of their half-submerged houses, on roads and on other high ground. A 1,000-foot long section of a flood-control embankment near Bhendabari in northern Bangladesh was washed away yesterday by the Teesta river, sweeping away some 500 shanties, said officials at the Water Development Board. Officials at the flood information centre said all major rivers were flowing above their danger levels and were expected to rise further over the next three to four days. "A threat of starvation looms over the people trapped in remote villages unless aid can reach them soon", one official told reporters. Diarrhoea took the lives of three people in Comilla, south of Dhaka, local sources said. The government says it has been trying to contain diseases. Ganoshasthaya Kendra, a non-government health organisation, said it had deployed 13 medical teams in two flood-stricken districts, Sirajganj and Sherpur. "Emergency services they provide include treatment of diarrhoeal diseases, dysentery, minor injuries and distribution of water purifying tablets", a Kendra statement said. The disaster management ministry said the government had sanctioned the distribution of rice, wheat and money to flood victims, but local officials said the resources that had been allocated were inadequate. Even though most crops had been harvested before the flooding started, land that was yet to be harvested and newly planted fields have now been destroyed, they said. No estimates of agricultural losses would be available until the floods fully receded, one official at the agriculture ministry said.

25 July 1998 - Bangladesh today prepared for a massive relief and rescue operation to tackle its worst floods in a decade. Nearly 100 people have died over the past two weeks and relief officials say half the country has been paralysed by the floods, brought on by heavy monsoon rains. "We have now the worst flooding in ten years with nearly ten million people affected", said one. He said most major rivers including the Ganges, Jamuna and Meghna had burst their banks and were continuing to inundate fresh areas. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina flew by helicopter to the worst affected areas in the south-east in Comilla district where thousands of flood victims gathered to receive rice, flour and clothes. She said her government would rebuild homes destroyed when the Gumti river tore through a flood protection dike. Hasina's press secretary Jawadul Karim said yesterday Friday that 750,000 people had been marooned and that the situation could deteriorate further, but that Bangladesh was not yet contemplating calling for international assistance. The high water is expected to recede in about a week, but meteorologists are forecasting more flooding later in the year. "We may face a major flood in September for which we have started preparing", one relief official said. Hasina has asked volunteer agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to help in the relief operations. She said there was a particular risk of diarrhoeal diseases and fevers because of the disruption to water supplies and sanitation services. More than 2,000 doctors and physicians have been dispatched to northern and north-eastern districts. Farming experts said damage to crops was minimal as paddy crops had already been harvested.

27 July 1998 - Bangladesh's worst floods in ten years, which have killed at least 94 people, are showing no sign of abating quickly despite improvements in some areas, weather officials said today. "Major rivers are still rising despite a welcome lull in rainfall", a meteorology official in Dhaka said. "Rivers will maintain their high level for the next one week or so", he added. The Dhaka weather office said it expected more showers in a few days. Yesterday, Jawadul Karim, press secretary to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, confirmed 94 deaths so far, although newspapers quoted unofficial sources who put the death toll at 165. Karim said that 20 million people have been affected in 35 of the country's 64 administrative districts and nearly 67,000 people had moved into shelters. Disaster management officials said floodwater had begun to recede slowly in 18 districts, mostly in the south and north-west, but conditions had deteriorated in other districts overnight even though there had been little rain. Karim said the government had started a full-scale relief and rescue operation and had urged non-governmental organisations to supplement its efforts. Officials said the country had one million tonnes of foodgrains in government stocks that should be enough to meet any emergency that might arise from the floods. The country does not expect any significant agricultural losses because crops had been mostly harvested before the rain-triggered flooding started. But they said the next plantation of rice, the country's main staple, could be delayed because the seedbeds in the flooded districts had been washed away. Officials said over 3,000 cattle had been killed in the deluge which damaged roads, embankments, small bridges and thousands of homes. The government said over 2,000 medical teams were trying to contain the spread of diseases such as diarrhoea, amid reports that hundreds of people have fallen ill after drinking floodwater or eating rotten food.

28 July 1998 - The death toll from monsoon floods in Bangladesh has now risen to 135 people, an increase of 24 overnight, and some 20 million people have been left homeless or marooned, officials said today. The officials said the floods, triggered by heavy rains, had inundated more land and 36 of the country's 64 districts were now affected. An official from the Meteorology Department predicted that more of the low-lying plains around Dhaka would be flooded as the water level in nearby rivers rose. Transport officials fear the major road and rail links between Dhaka and Chittagong might be cut if there was more rain. Jawadul Karim, Press Secretary to the Prime Minister, said on Monday night that the government had started a full-scale relief and rescue operation.

29 July 1998 - Monsoon floods in Bangladesh have killed at least 140 people and left millions homeless or marooned, and the situation could worsen as more areas are affected, officials said today. They said 37 of the country's 64 administrative districts were now in the grip of the floods, triggered more than two weeks ago by heavy rain. One of the worst-hit areas was the country's capital Dhaka, where thousands of residents have moved into flood shelters. "The situation may aggravate further as the floods, although showing some improvement in a few places, continue to spread", one official at the prime minister's office told reporters. Unofficial sources, quoted by newspapers, this morning put the death at more than 200. Local papers also said diseases, caused by people drinking floodwater or eating rotten food, had broken out in many districts and had so far killed 20 people. Although there had been no rain over the past four days, water levels on all of the country's major rivers were being pushed higher by water from upstream and from across the Indian border, officials with the Water Development Board said. The floods have affected some 20 million people, many of whom have lost their homes, officials said. A new district flooded yesterday was Sunamganj in the country's north-east after the River Surma overflowed its banks, local officials said. Some 20 people have died of diarrhoea, including 13 in northern Kurigram, while hundreds more have been suffering, press reports said. Communications between Dhaka and Chittagong port in the south and the north-eastern tea-growing district of Sylhet have been threatened after floodwater inundated parts of the highways, transport officials said.

29 July 1998 - The death toll from torrential monsoon rains that have swept across most of Bangladesh has risen to at least 205 and more than ten million have been rendered homeless. Officials say at least 35 people died overnight, raising the flood-related death toll to 205, with millions of others left homeless and marooned in the last two weeks. Heavy rains have inundated nearly 40 of the country's 64 districts. A rescue official at the flood forecasting centre in capital Dhaka said, "The situation is aggravating with the passing of each day, as most rivers are flowing above the danger level". He said there is no sign the rains will slow soon. At least 3,000 medical teams have been assigned to fight outbreaks of diarrhoea. More than 5,000 cattle have perished and inter-city road and rail links have been stopped due to the deluge. The army has been called out to rescue marooned people in several areas. Food and medicine are being air dropped.

31 July 1998 - Floods sweeping Bangladesh have killed at least 242 people and destroyed the homes or disrupted the lives of millions, disaster control officials said here today. "Fifty-four more deaths were reported today", one official said.

1 August 1998 - Floods in Bangladesh that have killed 253 people in more than two weeks started to wane today, but hundreds of people were still falling sick from diarrhoea and other diseases. Health officials said several hundred paramedics and doctors were struggling to check spread of a diarrhoea epidemic caused by drinking polluted water and eating rotten food. They said diarrhoea, dysentery and fever had affected nearly 40,000 people in flood ravaged northern, north-eastern and central districts. More than 30 people had died of diarrhoea. "Diseases have broken out in most of the affected districts and are taking their toll", one official said. The officials said 473 medical teams, comprising 1,666 doctors, had been dispatched to the affected areas. The death toll rose to 253 following reports today of 11 fresh casualties, mostly from drowning. The officials said nearly 17.5 million people have been affected by the floods, triggered by heavy monsoon rains, which also destroyed crops on 114,325 hectares of land. Flood Warning Centre officials said major rivers such as the Ganges, Jamuna and Brahmaputra were falling and that the flood situation had improved in 27 out of 37 affected districts.

3 August 1998 - Heavy rain drenched much of Bangladesh today, threatening to add to flooding which has already killed 261 people. "The country is having fresh rain in the north and south-east after a few days lull, which may make the condition worse in areas where floodwater had started receding", said Rashed Chowdhury of the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre. "The flood situation in the central part of the country and around Dhaka city may remain unchanged for next one or two days", he said. But he added the situation could deteriorate if fresh rains swelled rivers flowing toward the city. Weather officials said they had recorded 170mm of rain in northern district of Dinajpur and 130mm in southern Chittagong over 24 hours ending at 1800 hrs (1200, UTC) today. "Other areas also experienced heavy showers. Rains are likely to be fairly widespread across the country over next few days", one meteorologist said. The floods have engulfed 37 of the country's 64 administrative districts, officials said. About 20 million people have been affected, many of whom are now homeless or marooned.

7 August 1998 - Monsoon floods that have killed more than 300 people across Bangladesh have been receding, but officials warned today of more rain in some northern districts. The official death toll from drowning, collapsed houses and mudslides stood at 270 while water-borne diseases had claimed at least 36 lives, a disaster management official said. Nearly 50,000 people have contracted diarrhoea, caused by polluted water and rotten food in the 37 flood-hit districts. But the flood situation in all but five districts registered "marked improvement" today and was expected to improve further, Water Development Board officials said. The floods set off by heavy rains have inundated more than half of the country, leaving some 20 million people marooned or homeless. The Dhaka weather office today warned of more rains over some of the swamped districts in the north of the country over the next few days. "The monsoon remains fully active", one meteorology official said. Although the government said relief and medical operations had been geared up, thousands of people in flood shelters still faced shortages of dry food and drinking water. Municipal officials said they feared "continued water logging" in the city of nine million because of poor drainage system. Authorities said estimates of crop and property damage would take weeks to calculate but the government was planning to import 500,000 tonnes of food grain to cope with any emergency in the flood aftermath. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said while visiting some of the flooded areas yesterday that farmers affected by the deluge would not have to repay their agricultural loans for one year, the official BSS news agency said.

9 August 1998 - Monsoon floods continued to recede in Bangladesh today, but the death toll rose to 311 with thousands of families still marooned, officials said. They said over 57,000 people had contracted diarrhoea in the country's 37 districts swept by three weeks of floods, caused by heavy rain. At least 36 of them died, health officials said. Another 275 died from drowning, house collapse, mudslides and snake bites, disaster management officials told reporters. Weather officials said today they expected scattered rain all over the country in the next few days but it would not aggravate the flood situation. "Unless there are exceptionally heavy showers the situation will continue to improve", one meteorology official said. Medical teams working in the affected areas said that diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases could spread as people leave flood shelters to return to their wrecked homes and face a shortage of dry food and clean water. The government, however, said it would do everything possible to help the people in the flood aftermath.

11 August 1998 - Monsoon floods which have submerged more than half of Bangladesh and killed at least 311 people receded today, officials said. "Many roads in the affected areas need urgent repair but we don't have enough resources or manpower to do the job quickly", said Mohammad Shamsur Rahman, an official of the country's roads and highways division. People and vehicles battled through floodwaters on a partially submerged highway linking Dhaka to the north-eastern tea-growing district of Sylhet. The floods, brought on by heavy monsoon rains in mid-July, have killed at least 311 people and left millions marooned or homeless in 37 of the country's 64 administrative districts. Road communications in all affected districts have been badly disrupted, as far away as Sylhet, 250km from Dhaka. Large potholes and layers of mud made it virtually impossible for traffic to pass through areas where floodwaters had receded. Most crops had been harvested before the deluge struck, farmers tending cattle at sites beside the highway said. "But some of the crops have been damaged when the floodwaters entered our homes", said farmer Abdul Malek of Sathipur. Sandbags have been piled up along a section of the highway running through the eastern district of Brahmanbaria in an effort to halt further erosion by the overflowing Meghna river. After a bridge was destroyed at nearby Sathipur, authorities had to provide a second ferry service for people to cross the Meghna from Bhairab on their way to Sylhet.

13 August 1998 - Heavy rain pounded Bangladesh today, aggravating the misery caused by floods across the country and pushing the death toll up to 326, officials said. They said some of the season's heaviest rains raised the levels of major rivers, just after they had started to drop, and inundated new areas as conditions worsened in places already reeling from nearly a month of floods. Eleven deaths were reported today, including five people who drowned in the eastern district of Brahmanbaria and two more killed in fresh landslides in Chittagong. Two others died in Cox's Bazar and one each in Sylhet and Tangail districts. Four people, including two children, had died in mudslides set off by the rain in south-eastern Chittagong and Chittagong Hill Tracts late yesterday. At least 311 people died earlier in the floods which ravaged 37 of the country's 64 administrative districts. Officials in the affected areas said more than 20 million people had been badly hit, and at least a quarter of them were left marooned or homeless. Health officials said nearly 60,000 people had contracted diarrhoea, caused by polluted water and rotten foods, in the flood-hit districts. In Dhaka, floodwater entered more homes and swallowed more roads as rains continued unabated from last night. Schools were forced to close and attendance in offices was low. "The flood situation is likely to aggravate further with the mid-monsoon showers likely to continue", said an official at Dhaka's Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre. The weather office recorded 13 inches of rain in Cox's Bazar over the 36-hour period till 1800, local time, yesterday. "We have been hit by some of the season's heaviest rains", a meteorology official in Chittagong said. Incessant showers hit the country's hilly north-east and raised river levels in the north-west, Water Development Board officials said. "The Turag and Buriganga rivers near Dhaka swelled further and were flowing above their danger levels", they said. Roads between Dhaka and north-eastern district of Sylhet flooded once again, transport operators said. Witnesses also said highways between Chittagong and Cox's Bazar were flooded. Thousands of people who gathered in shelters in Dhaka and other places faced shortages of food and drinking water, relief officials said. The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said it would start "open market sales" of rice next week at rates below market prices. Hasina ordered the disaster management ministry and all other relevant departments to step up relief operations yesterday. "I want to ensure that help reaches every victim of these disastrous floods", she said. Opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia told reporters yesterday that the government had "miserably failed" to tackle the floods and help the victims. Agriculture ministry officials said they were busy assessing crop losses and their impact in the aftermath of the floods.

14 August 1998 - Overnight rains aggravated already severe flooding across Bangladesh today, and disaster management officials said they saw no immediate respite. "There have been moderate to heavy, scattered or incessant showers all over the flooded districts", said a meteorology official in Chittagong. "And we don't see any immediate respite from that". The floods have ravaged more than half of Bangladesh, killing at least 326 people and leaving millions clinging to their swamped homes or in search of shelter on dry ground. Others are living in hundreds of flood shelters opened in Dhaka and the 36 other districts which have borne the brunt of the month-long disaster. "Even if there is no further rain, the floodwater will not recede quickly from the capital because the city's drainage system is not that efficient", said an official at Dhaka's weather office. In Cox's Bazar, weather officials recorded 140mm of rain in 15 hours ending at 0900 (0300, UTC) today. Agriculture ministry officials said they were assessing crop losses and their impact in the aftermath of the floods. Officials have said at least 40 people have died after contracting diarrhoea. Nearly 60,000 others were ill after drinking polluted water or eating rotten food. Other flood deaths were caused by drowning, landslides, house collapses and snake bites, a disaster ministry official said. An official at the prime minister's office said today the government had not yet decided to issue an international appeal for help. "I believe we can rely on ourselves for some more time", he said. Heavy rain has also fallen on the country's hilly north-east and raised river levels in the north-west, Water Development Board officials said.

17 August 1998 - A press report states: The death toll from devastating summer floods in Bangladesh climbed to 330 yesterday as thousands of soldiers and volunteers struggled to save dykes. Officials in the Ministry of Disaster Management said a flood crest triggered by heavy monsoons at the weekend pushed up water levels in the major rivers in the north-western and central regions, inundating the homes and fields of up to 45,000 residents. They reported ten more deaths early yesterday from drowning in the newly submerged Kurigram district in the north-west and the central Faridpur region. The surging floodwaters passed a crucial stretch of the already swollen Brahmaputra and the Ganges rivers on Saturday (15 August), inundating towns and villages downstream and increasing the agony of tens of thousands of people clinging desperately to their lives in marooned homes. State-run radio said more than 25 million people were affected by the month-long floods.

17 August 1998 - Heavy rain pounded Bangladesh today, dashing hopes of relief from flooding that has so far killed nearly 340 people and made millions homeless, officials said. "We had been hoping that the devastating floods would now start receding", an official at Dhaka's Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre said after a two-day lull in the rain. "But everything changed this morning". Weather officials said more rain was expected, postponing relief from five weeks of flooding which has inundated more than half the country. All rivers, some of which had started receding yesterday, were rising again, one official said. Disaster management officials said nearly 25 million people had been directly affected by the worst flooding in ten years, with houses, bridges and roads washed away in many areas. Government sources estimated about one million acres of rice and other crops had been lost. The agriculture ministry said it had adopted a 52 million post-flood rehabilitation programme "pending the final assessment of losses". "It's just impossible to make the loss assessment until the floods have fully receded", said a ministry official. Water-borne diseases are taking their toll on the flood victims. Health officials said nearly 50,000 people had contracted diarrhoea by drinking polluted water or eating rotten food. At least 40 had died. Other flood deaths have been caused by drowning, mudslides, house collapse and snake bites. In the southern coastal district of Barguna, at least 50,000 people, mostly fishermen, had been left marooned while rough seas made it impossible for others to catch fish, local officials said. In north-eastern Sylhet, bridges, roads, houses and vast croplands were under water.

19 July 1998 - Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

Keyword: Tidal waves

More than 1,000 people are feared dead after three tidal waves destroyed villages on Papua New Guinea's remote north-west coast, sweeping hundreds to their deaths, burying others alive and making thousands homeless. More than 700 were confirmed dead today, Catholic church officials in the town of Aitape said, adding that the total was expected to rise above 1,000. Today rescuers continued dragging bloated bodies from the Sissano lagoon, which was littered with splintered remains of huts which once made up several villages on its shores. Villagers living along Sissano lagoon had nowhere to run when the massive tidal waves caused by an offshore earthquake swept out of the darkness and destroyed their beachfront homes at 1900 hrs (0900, UTC) on Friday (17 July). Survivors say that first their homes trembled as an earthquake shook the seabed. Then the three huge waves, the last and largest estimated at ten metres high, swept men, women and children into the sea. Many villages on the slender spit of land separating the lagoon from the sea have completely disappeared. The Australian Defence Force, which is helping in the rescue operation, estimates 6,000 people are homeless. An estimated 10,000 people lived in the area. Rescuers were using helicopters and speedboats to ferry the injured to the Aitape hospital, which was also used as a makeshift morgue. Health officials at Aitape said most of the injured suffered multiple fractures or gashes caused when they were thrown against trees and debris. Hospitals in Aitape and Vanimo, the capital of West Sepik, were becoming full, rescuers said, adding the most seriously injured were being airlifted to the larger hospital in Wewak, about 140km east of Aitape. Australia was arranging to send three Hercules C130 transport aircraft loaded with emergency supplies and medical personnel today.

20 July 1988 - Around 3,000 people, mainly the elderly and the young, are now thought to have been killed when a tsunami swept away their village homes Friday (17 July) following an undersea earthquake 30 minutes earlier measuring seven on the Richter scale. Aid workers say that hour by hour more bodies are being discovered under the sand or in the lagoons. West Sepik provincial governor John Tekwie told the BBC "I'm looking at a very conservative figure of 3,000 people dead, based on the number of bodies recovered so far and the number of people seen still hiding in the jungle". Authorities say practically nothing remains of the coastal villages where 12,000 people lived until the tsunami smashed residents into the jungle or swept them out to sea. More than 600 bodies have been officially counted. At least 6,000 people are estimated to have been left homeless. The Australian air force dispatched a mobile hospital and medical staff to Aitape after local hospitals filled up quickly. Doctors say conditions are appalling and they desperately need medicine, blood and more surgeons to help with the survivors, who are suffering from fractures and internal bleeding. More disaster aid was being flown to northern Papua New Guinea from Australia, New Zealand and France, Japan and South Korea have also offered help.

20 July 1998 - At least 3,000 people were killed by three huge tidal waves which devastated villages in Papua New Guinea's remote north-west, West Sepik's local governor estimated today. More than 1,000 have been confirmed dead since the tidal waves raged across a lagoon on Friday (17 July) and swept away villages and people. Some 10,000 people lived in the stricken areas but rescue and other officials said today that thousands were still missing, many having fled terrified and injured into the jungle-clad mountains behind Sissano lagoon. "What you are seeing today is just survivors, but where is everybody else", said West Sepik local governor John Tekwie. "I would give you a near accurate estimate of 3,000 dead", he said after visiting demolished villages which once dotted the lagoon west of the town of Aitape. "Many more bodies are still stuck in the debris within the mangrove swamps, within the lagoon itself, caught between the debris of the buildings, the coconut trees, all the bush, the trees that have been thrown into the lagoon", Tekwie said. Many of the dead were children too young to run fast enough or too weak to climb coconut trees before the waves - survivors said one was ten metres high - engulfed them at about 1900 (0900, UTC) on Friday. Rescuers in small boats fished bodies out of Sissano lagoon, many tangled in the nearby mangrove swamps. Others ventured out to sea to find more bodies. Rescuers feared disease would soon become a major problem. Five villages along a narrow spit of sand along Sissano lagoon were razed by the tidal waves. Warapu village was among the worst hit, with an estimated 500 of its 1,395 people feared dead. Nearby Arop and Sissano were also hard hit.

21 July 1998 - Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Bill Skate says he fears the death toll from the tidal waves last Friday (17 July) could be greater than expected. Skate told the BBC today that 1,200 people were known to have died but 6,000 were still unaccounted for and he was not optimistic about their fate. Rescue workers say there are still a number of corpses in the swamps behind the seven villages swept away by the tsunami. Ben Taru, spokesman for the state appointed disaster committee, said the country was having a hard time financing the rescue effort. The Australian Air Force has flown in three planeloads of supplies to the affected area but Taru said the need for additional medical supplies, food and water "was great". Doctors say many survivors suffered serious injuries and those who were not maimed were in danger of dying from diseases such as pneumonia from the water they swallowed. Authorities say residents were not properly prepared to deal with the aftermath of the tidal waves. Taru said residents "were not informed as to what precautions to take and what can be done to try and avoid these kinds of things".

21 July 1998 - The tidal wave which hit Papua New Guinea killed as many as 3,000 people and left 6,000 missing, and officials said today that disease was threatening the survivors. "There are still so many people still out there missing and yet to be accounted for", said Papua New Guinea disaster co-ordinator Colin Travertz. An earthquake under the sea floor threw three waves of up to 10 metres in height crashing ashore on Friday night (17 July). Medical teams flown in from nearby Australia joined local doctors in treating victims, many of them children. "It is hard to identify the bodies because they were swept away from their villages and the tides keep moving them around", Aitape Catholic church spokesman John Moipu said. "The people just bury them and keep count". There were about 500 bodies in and around Sissano lagoon, the epicentre of the tsunami. The corpses rotting in the tropical sun were contaminating the lagoon and threatening to spread disease. Many survivors had pneumonia after spending hours in salt water, or had become infected with more common tropical diseases such as malaria. Prime Minister Bill Skate said more than 6,000 coastal villagers were unaccounted for and about 1,200 had been confirmed dead. Skate said more than 700 people had been buried and 2,527 people had been found alive. Local government officials said the death toll could hit 3,000. Four villages were devastated along a narrow sand spit where 8,000-10,000 people lived. The high school at Aitape was made into a makeshift hospital as well over 300 people were treated at the Raihu centre. Similar numbers were being treated at Vanimo to the west, where the Australian Defence Force set up a portable field hospital.

22 July 1998 - Thousands of people were missing and rescue workers buried and burned hundreds of corpses today after tidal waves devastated Papua New Guinea's remote north-west coast. Rescue workers disposed of bodies where they found them to counter the risk of disease as government officials continued to estimate the number of dead might reach 3,000. The official death toll stood at 1,600 after three tidal waves up to ten metres high crashed onto the Pacific nation's north-west coast on Friday (17 July). Officially 3,000 people have now been accounted for in medical care centres out of a population in the area around Sissano lagoon of between 6,000 and 10,000. Many of the missing are believed to be hiding in the jungle, fearful that another tsunami will hit. Prime Minister Bill Skate said most of the injured had been treated. "Almost all of the critically injured have been moved out of the disaster area to medical centres", he said. The government was now working on distributing much needed relief supplies, much of which has been sent from nearby Australia and New Zealand. A state of emergency has been declared in Aitape. Skate said the police and military had been put in charge of the relief operation under police commissioner Peter Aigilo. A national fund was also set up to raise money for victims. A spokesman for Skate said domestic and overseas donations to date amounted to about two million kina (US$4.5 million).

23 July 1998 - Disease has become the greatest threat to survivors of Papua New Guinea's tidal waves as rotting bodies contaminate water and food supplies and hundreds of survivors with gangrenous injuries. Sissano lagoon - the epicentre of the affected area - remained choked with hundreds of corpses today and government officials are considering sealing it off and allowing the bodies to disintegrate rather than trying to clear it. "I am calling on the government to seal Sissano, to make it a restricted zone, and allow natural decay to destroy the corpses", Vice Finance Minister Andrew Kumbakor said from Aitape. Injured survivors airlifted out of Sissano to provincial hospitals and an Australian army field hospital in Vanimo are now facing a second fight for their lives. Most suffered broken bones and deep cuts from flying debris and coral and the injuries are now turning gangrenous. Australian medical officers are reporting an increase in amputations.

23 July 1998 - The task of retrieving bodies from a corpse-clogged lagoon in Papua New Guinea was called off today, with officials planning to seal off the area devastated by three tidal waves. Rescue officials welcomed the move to close Sissano lagoon on the remote north-west coast and let the bodies decompose. The risk of disease from hundreds of bloated corpses had grown and wild animals threatened rescuers. The official death toll from the three tsunamis which crashed ashore Friday night (17 July) was revised down from 1,600 to 1,300, many of them children, but some 3,000 people were still missing. West said dozens more bodies could be under the splintered remains of palm and bark huts flung into the lagoon by the waves. About 3,500 survivors have been accounted for. The waves wiped out entire villages. Up to 120 squarekm will be sealed off in an area which was once home to 6,000-10,000 people. Australian and Papua New Guinean media said once the area was sealed off, officials were considering blasting open a passage in the lagoon to let in the sea. A spokesman for police commissioner Peter Aigilo, controller of the state of emergency declared by Prime Minister Bill Skate, said the area may be sealed off for up to five years. Prime Minister Skate said about kina ten million ($4.4 million) had been raised in relief appeals locally and abroad.

24 July 1998 - US sniffer dogs have been flown to Papua New Guinea's tsunami disaster area to search for survivors in swamps behind Sissano lagoon, itself a watery graveyard for hundreds. Relief officials hope the dogs, a Siberian husky and three German shepherds, may find survivors, possibly children, too scared or unable because of injuries to come out from where they were driven by three tsunamis which devastated the area six days ago. One of the tsunamis, which smashed through a string of villages along the Sissano lagoon coast last Friday (17 July) night, was estimated by survivors to have been 30 feet high. Australian government officials said today that the official death toll stood at 1,500. About 5,200 people were in care centres and 700 in provincial hospitals and an Australian army field hospital, officials said. That left 2,000 to 3,000 people still missing from a local population of between 8,000 and 10,000. The gruesome task of retrieving bodies from Sissano lagoon was called off yesterday with hundreds of bloated, disintegrating corpses still in the water. Rescue officials also said the threat from disease and crocodiles, which were feeding on the corpses, had made the lagoon too dangerous to continue the retrieval operation. The Florida-based sniffer dogs are trained to track bodies under water and in swampy land. The United States delivered relief supplies to the capital Port Moresby yesterday. These included tents, beds, clothing, water containers, tools, lanterns and medical supplies. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will make a brief stop in Port Moresby next week to discuss how the United States can help the Pacific nation reconstruct. A state of emergency has been declared on the Sissano coast and up to 45 square miles sealed off because of the fear of disease, not only from the corpses in the lagoon but from hundreds more buried in shallow graves among the surviving villages. Papua New Guinea officials plan to allow the Sissano lagoon corpses to decay naturally before blasting open the mouth of the lagoon to allow the ocean and tides to drain the waste. Captain C. Wapar said that 616 lb of explosives were flown to Vanimo, west of Sissano, yesterday. "They are going to blow up the mouth of the lagoon to let it drain out to sea", Wapar said. But for the survivors, especially the injured, the fight for life continued, with Australian army medics reporting more amputations as they struggled to stops wounds turning gangrenous. Doctors in the Vanimo field hospital have been forced to amputate limbs from 12 patients, many of them small children, to save their lives. "We have so far amputated 12 patients who have lost either arms or legs, mostly legs. It is now six days since the disaster and we expect more amputations because of serious infections", said Dr John Novette. Many of the injured suffered multiple broken bones and cuts from flying debris and coral when they were washed away by the waves and tossed into coconut trees and against huts. In the tropical heat many of the cuts, even small ones, have become infected and turned gangrenous. Many have pneumonia after swallowing salt water. Medical officers also feared an outbreak of tropical diseases such as malaria and cholera. Hundreds of terrified survivors have fled to inland villages, vowing never to return to the coast. With nowhere to go, no homes, little food and water, they sit, unsure of the future, in the dirt under plastic tarpaulins. The exodus from the Sissano lagoon area has put pressure on relief officials to house and feed the growing refugee population, and new, makeshift villages are emerging in the jungle.

26 July 1998 - Church bells tolled across Papua New Guinea today as the grief-stricken country prayed in a day of mourning for the dead and the battered survivors of its tsunami disaster. As the grim quest for the missing continued, villagers and aid workers gathered under palm trees or in patched up churches along the sandy strip of the picturesque north-west coast where 1,500 people died and 2,000 are still missing. Around the nation, people trekked in from remote mountain villages to join packed church services in towns and cities. The day of prayer was organised by the Melanesian Council of Churches to help the 4.3 million people in this impoverished nation come to grips with their grief after one of the country's worst natural disasters. More than 5,000 people are homeless and hundreds more are in local hospitals and an Australian army field hospital. Australia is heading the international relief operation that has shipped in urgently needed food, water, medicine and shelter, as well as surgeons and nurses. Defence Minister Ian McLachlan is due to fly to the capital, Port Moresby, on Monday for discussions with PNG government leaders about further aid before visiting the stricken area around Sissano lagoon. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will also discuss assistance during a previously scheduled visit to PNG next week. As foreign aid continues pouring in, Father Burgess said it was time for the survivors to rebuild their lives.

27 July 1998 - Three tsunamis that crashed onto Papua New Guinea's north-west coast ten days ago killed at least 2,000 and the toll is likely rise further, rescue officials said today. The latest toll is an increase of about 500 in the number of known deaths. "The death toll so far is 2,000 and this figure is expected to increase as more dead bodies are recovered from the Sissano lagoon and the mangrove swamp", police commissioner Peter Aigilo said in a statement dated 26 July but released on Monday. Aigilo said 10,068 survivors had been identified and 1,131 had been treated at hospitals in Aitape, Vanimo and Wewak. Aigilo said a census was being conducted in an attempt to determine exactly how many people were in the area when the waves struck.

28 July 1998 - A press report from Hong Kong, dated today, states: The discovery of almost 50 decomposing bodies near a refugee centre prompted officials to expand an exclusion zone around the tidal wave disaster area as the Government raised the official death toll. Government spokesman Chris Hawkins said yesterday the toll was now 2,000, although this was an estimate because not all bodies had been counted. The latest figure was not expected to change significantly, as officers of the Disaster and Emergency Centre believed they had now accounted for almost all of the missing, Mr Hawkins said. Officials yesterday extended an exclusion zone around Sissano lagoon after a specialist search and rescue unit from Florida using sniffer dogs discovered 47 bodies near Malol village, where more than 3,500 survivors were being housed. Disease fears resulted in the refugees being moved further inland.

3 August 1998 - Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Bill Skate said today that the death toll from three tsunamis that struck the country's north-west coast last month now stood at more than 2,100 and that searchers were still hunting for bodies. "The latest tally we have today is about 2,134 people are dead", Skate said here at a joint media conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard. "There are 9,483 in the care centres, 628 are in the hospitals, and they are still searching for more dead bodies", said Skate, adding that villagers had been asked not to return to the devastated area as it was contaminated with rotting corpses. Officials estimate that up to 2,000 people could still be missing.

21 July 1998 - Bratislava, Slovakia

Keyword: Floods

At least 16 people, most of them feared to be children, died in floods in eastern Slovakia and the death toll is set to rise, the Interior Ministry said today. Heavy rain yesterday caused several small rivers to over-flow, sending flood waves into at least 20 villages and Gypsy encampments. Weather forecasters predicted isolated showers and even storms for eastern Slovakia later in the day. "We have 16 dead and dozens of missing people and it is expected that unfortunately the number of dead will rise", Interior Ministry spokesman Peter Pleva said. "We have no precise information on how many children were killed but we are afraid that most of the victims were children", he said. District officials from the affected areas had said earlier that some villages were still inaccessible from the ground making it impossible to give a final estimate of the casualties. "Gradually, we are getting the situation under control, as the water has been settling down since late last night. But the consequences will be catastrophic", said Emil Blicha, head of the Presov district office, adding that apart from the cost in human life, crop and infrastructure damage would also be enormous.

21 July 1998 - At least 16 people died and 42 are missing after flash-floods from over flowing rivers swept through villages near the eastern Slovak towns of Presov and Sabinov last night, local authorities said today. District officials from the affected areas said that some villages were still inaccessible from the ground and that final estimates of the number of dead and missing were therefore impossible to make. "We still couldn't get into some villages and so any estimate is preliminary. So far we know of ten dead and 42 missing but I'm afraid it's going to be more", an official from the Sabinov district said. The head of the Presov district office, Emil Blicha, said that he was aware of at least another two deaths in his area. Heavy rain yesterday caused several small rivers to overflow sending flood waves into villages and Gypsy encampments. "In some villages people had literally half an hour to escape", Blicha said, adding that a rescue mission was now under way.

21 July 1998 - At least 16 people, most of them feared to be children, died in floods in eastern Slovakia and the death toll is set to rise, the Interior Ministry said today. Heavy rain yesterday caused several small rivers to over flow, sending flood waves into at least 20 villages and Gypsy encampments. Weather forecasters predicted isolated showers and even storms for eastern Slovakia later in the day. "We have 16 dead and dozens of missing people and it is expected that unfortunately the number of dead will rise", Interior Ministry spokesman Peter Pleva said. "We have no precise information on how many children were killed but we are afraid that most of the victims were children", he said. District officials from the affected areas had said earlier that some villages were still inaccessible from the ground making it impossible to give a final estimate of the casualties. "Gradually, we are getting the situation under control, as the water has been settling down since late last night. But the consequences will be catastrophic", said Emil Blicha, head of the Presov district office, adding that apart from the cost in human life, crop and infrastructure damage would also be enormous.

22 July 1998 - The death toll from floods Monday (20 July) in eastern Slovakia has risen to 28, mostly children, and 45 people are still missing, the Slovak Interior Ministry said today. Several rivers swollen by heavy rains burst their banks late on Monday, sending torrents of muddy water gushing through at least 20 villages and Gypsy encampments. Many of the dead were from the village of Jarovnice devastated when the swollen Mala Svinka River smashed buildings, uprooted trees and overturned cars. Throughout the night hundreds of rescue workers struggled through thick mud to dig out bodies of the dead and reach the ruins of flattened houses.

22 July 1998 - The death toll from Monday's floods in eastern Slovakia has risen to 34 with around 40 people still missing, Slovak Interior Minister Gustav Krajci told Markiza television today. Several rivers swollen by heavy rains burst their banks late on Monday (20 July), sending torrents of muddy water gushing through at least 20 villages and Gypsy encampments. Krajci estimated damage at up to 1.5 billion Slovak crowns ($43 million). The Interior Ministry said most of the dead were children and that many were from the mainly Gypsy village of Jarovnice, devastated when the Mala Svinka river burst its banks. Rescue workers, using dogs, struggled through thick mud throughout today to dig out bodies and reach the ruins of flattened houses. Despite forecasts of scattered showers and even storms in eastern Slovakia, the weather was warm and fairly clear by early evening.

24 July 1998 - The death toll from floods in eastern Slovakia has risen to 36 with at least 31 others still missing, a flood commission representative said today. Several rivers swollen by heavy rains burst their banks late on Monday (20 July), sending torrents of muddy water gushing through at least 20 villages and gypsy encampments. Officials have already said that most of the victims are children and Interior Minister Gustav Krajci has estimated financial damages from the disaster at up to 1.5 billion crowns ($43 million). "By now, we know of about 33 dead in Sabinov district and three others dead in the Presov district. At least 31 people are still missing", the flood commission representative said today. Relatives began burying their dead earlier today. Local press reported a mass burial of 26 people from Jarovnice, the worst hit village in the area.

27 July 1998 - Soldiers were mobilised to help flood-hit areas in the east of the Czech Republic as several districts braced for more heavy rain expected later today. The CTK news agency reported that 525 soldiers were called into action as forecasters predicted more than 50 millimetres of rain in the area. Six people were reported to have been killed in flooding in the region last week, and Finance Ministry officials today put preliminary damage estimates at one billion Czech crowns ($31.80 million).

28 July 1998 - The death toll from last week's floods in eastern Slovakia rose to 43 today as rescue workers recovered more bodies from the mud and debris, the official news agency TASR reported. Another 15 people are still missing, police said. TASR quoted Maros Hrinka of the Presov police department as saying that most of the victims found today were children. He said identification of the bodies was difficult. Interior Minister Gustav Krajci has estimated the cost of the damage caused by the disaster at up to 1.5 billion crowns ($43 million).

27 July 1998 - The death toll from last week's floods in eastern Slovakia rose further over the weekend and is now put at 39 with 24 people missing, the official news agency TASR reported today. "Another two victims were found by soldiers on Saturday (25 July) around 1900 and today (Sunday) we received notice of another two bodies, one of which was a two- to four-year-old child", TASR quoted the chairman of the Sabinov flood commission, Dusan Majercak as saying. The official news agency said that identification of the bodies was proving difficult. Interior Minister Gustav Krajci has estimated the cost of the damage caused by the disaster at up to 1.5 billion crowns ($43 million).

1 August 1998 - Tehran, Iran

Keyword: Floods

Some 30 people are reported to have died in floods and a landslide in northern Iran, the official IRNA news agency said today. Heavy rains in mountainous areas of the northern Gilan province yesterday afternoon caused the floods and landslide, the agency said. Witnesses said mudslides caused by the rain washed away cars and trucks carrying tourists visiting the area, IRNA said, adding that more than 500 relief workers were searching for the bodies of the victims. "Although unofficial accounts put the death toll at more than 100, it is impossible to verify the figure before the conclusion of the search operation", IRNA said. IRNA also reported that floods yesterday killed two people in the north-western province of Meshkin Shahr.

1 August 1998 - South Korea

Keyword: Floods

At least 13 people are dead and many more are missing after torrential rains swept South Korea's southern regions. The Korea Broadcasting System reports that this morning's rains trapped hundreds of people along the slopes of Mt Jiri, where floods blocked all passageways to safety. Mt Jiri, a popular vacation site, is South Korea's largest mountain, located 150 miles south-east of Seoul. KBS said flights and trains to many southern regions have been cancelled and several roads are under water. Military and police officials continue extensive rescue efforts to locate trekkers isolated in the mountainous southern region.

2 August 1998 - South Korea said today that the number of dead from torrential rains on Friday (31 July) night had grown to 20 with 71 left missing. "We expect to find more bodies, especially in rivers, as searching operations continue", said an official at the National Disaster Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters (NDPCH). The official said damage so far was estimated at 36.2 billion Won ($29.4 million). The NDPCH reported 12 people were killed and 26 missing yesterday. Many of the victims had been camping in mountains in the south of the country, where about ten inches of rain fell between Friday night and Saturday morning. Officials at the NDPCH said most of the missing were believed to be dead. He also said hundreds of people who were stuck on Chiri Mountain by Saturday had been evacuated. Korean media said inaccurate weather forecasts were partly to blame for the heavy casualties.

3 August 1998 - At least 34 people were killed and 62 were missing and feared dead from flash floods and landslides in South Korea, the country's top disaster prevention office said today. The National Disaster Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters said most of the victims had been camping in the scenic mountains in the south of the country, where up to 36 cm of rain fell between Friday night and Sunday. Officials at the disaster prevention office said most of the missing were believed to be dead. Hundreds of people who were stuck on Chiri Mountain had been evacuated. A large number of people had gone to the popular mountain at the height of the country's vacation season. South Korean television showed dramatic pictures of campers being rescued with ropes and pulleys across raging mountain streams. Emergency squads rescued some 30 campers on Mount Chiri in a midnight operation, South Korean media said. Some 22,000 personnel from the defence ministry and search and rescue agencies have joined the operations, the disaster prevention office said. Flash floods destroyed 149 bridges and 134 buildings, leaving 172 people homeless. Damages were estimated at Won 64.5 billion ($50.5 million), the disaster prevention office said. About 4,443 hectares of farmland were flooded, it added. Korean media said inaccurate weather forecasts were partly to blame for the heavy casualties.

4 August 1998 - The death toll from floods and landslides in South Korea has risen to at least 54 with another 47 missing and feared dead, the country's top disaster prevention office said today. The National Disaster Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters (NDPC) early this morning issued a heavy rain alert for Seoul and surrounding areas after the low atmospheric pressure which caused the torrential rains in the southern part of Korea moved north. Rain had been falling in the Seoul area at a rate of about 40 mm per hour since 2200, GMT, an NCPC official said. But the rain in the southern regions had stopped, he said. "We are worried the damage will spread to Seoul and surrounding areas", the official said. Media reports said the heavy rain disrupted the morning commute and some underground roads were flooded. The Seoul Metropolitan Subway Corp said it suspended operations at two subway lines after rail tracks sank. In central Seoul, traffic slowed to a crawl as cars moved with care through flooded intersections and roadways. Sidewalks, stairways and roadways along Seoul's Namsan Mountain had turned into rivers of muddy water and debris. No injuries had been reported in the Seoul area as of 0030 GMT. Weather forecasters said sporadic heavy rains would likely continue through the week. Officials at the disaster prevention office said most of the people still missing from floods in the south were believed to be dead.

5 August 1998 - A press report from Seoul, dated today, states: The six-day search operations for flood victims in the southern part of South Korea continued yesterday amid growing fear that the operations may last longer than expected. Some 4,000 soldiers, policemen, government officials and residents, took part in the search operation over an extensive area involving Mt Chiri's valleys and nearby waters. Helicopters, rubber boats and other equipment were mobilised to help the rescue squad recover bodies of the victims. The search operations picked up momentum because of the good weather and marked drops in water level in the valleys and rivers. They also benefited from improved visibility in the waters, although the search yielded few tangible results. Only four bodies were recovered during the operation yesterday. A senior official at operation headquarters cautiously predicted that the operation might go on longer than expected because the scope of areas to be combed has been expanded greatly. The sea and all the rivers in the down reaches of the mountain valleys have to be searched, he said, adding that "it may take weeks or months to finish the search operations". The headquarters in the Kyongsan-namdo region is stationing rescue teams in the lower Tokchon Hiver basin and along the south coast as bodies of missing persons could have been swept far from Mt Chiri. The rescue teams have to scour a 50km circumference from the valley near Daewon Temple in Mt Chiri to the Sachon Bay in the South Sea. In Cholla-namdo, soldiers, policemen and rescue teams are jointly conducting relief operations to locate fallen victims in a 60km waterway, ranging from Piagol Valley in Mt. Chiri to seas off Kwangyang City. According to an official announcement of the National Disaster Prevention Countermeasure Headquarters (NDPCH), the torrential rains which pounded the southern part of the nation last Saturday morning caused a total of 95 human casualties as of 0600 yesterday. The total broke down to 67 in Kyongsan-namdo (46 dead, 21 missing), 19 in Kwangju and Cholla-namdo (eight dead, 11 missing), eight in Cholla-pukto (four dead, four missing) and one dead in Ulsan.

6 August 1998 - South Korea said at least eight people were killed and 13 were missing as heavy rains dumped as much as 613mm of water on the north of the country last night and this morning. More than 2,700 people were left homeless by the latest floods and mudslides, the National Disaster Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters said. Seoul's Kimpo International Airport said one runway remained closed after a Korean Air flight from Tokyo skidded off a wet runway last night. Twenty-six of the 376 passengers on board the Boeing 747, Flight KE8702, were hospitalised and ten remained in hospital this morning, a Korean Air spokesman said. The aircraft's wing and landing gear were damaged he said. Northern Kyonggi Province and the Seoul area had received rainfall ranging from 150mm to 613mm between yesterday evening and 0700 today, the disaster headquarters said. Local television showed people wading through waist-deep water holding children above their heads, people stranded on rooftops, swollen rivers swallowing up cars and distraught citizens taking refuge in schools and government buildings. KBS television showed roads leading to Uijongbu, north of Seoul, nearly submerged by flood waters. The city of Paju, north-west of Seoul, was reported to be completely cut off by flooding. The rains in the north followed the floods and mudslides in the south of the country last weekend (1-2 August). Sixty-four people were dead from the weekend havoc in the south as of this morning and 32 were still missing and feared dead. Most of the weekend flood victims were camping on Chiri mountain, a popular hiking and camping site 220km south of Seoul. South Korea's capital received up to 320mm of rain on Tuesday, its wettest day in 27 years, but no serious injuries were reported.

6 August 1998 - Torrential rains returned to South Korea overnight, dumping more than two feet of water on the north and raising to more than 150 the number of people killed or missing from mudslides and floods, officials said today. More than 2,700 people also were left homeless and some 50 buildings and 31 roads were destroyed or damaged, the National Disaster Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters said. Damage estimates were not yet available as rescue operations were the priority, it said. The deluge last night and this morning left 40 people dead and 22 missing, the agency said. This added to the misery of last weekend when floods and mudslides in the south left 64 people dead and 32 missing and feared dead. The latest victims included eight soldiers killed today in a landslide at a military unit in northern Kyonggi Province, the Defence Ministry said. Four other soldiers were missing in the slide, which occurred while the soldiers were trying to repair communications facilities. Seoul's Kimpo International Airport said one runway was closed after a Korean Air flight from Tokyo skidded off a wet runway last night in winds of up to 15 knots. The runway was partially opened by mid-afternoon today. Twenty-six of the 376 passengers aboard the Boeing 747, flight KE8702, were hospitalised and ten remained in hospital this afternoon, a Korean Air spokesman said. Pictures of the aircraft showed a mangled wing and landing gear.

7 August 1998 - Floods and mudslides caused by torrential rains across South Korea this week have killed 184 people and left 85 missing and feared dead, officials said today. Record rainfalls in Seoul and northern areas of the country on Wednesday (5 August) and yesterday killed 118 people and left 56 missing, the defence ministry and the National Disaster Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters (NDPCH) said. The disaster agency said preliminary estimates nation-wide of the damage from this week's disasters had risen to US$213 million but that figure was sure to mount. Some 22,000 houses and 494 buildings were damaged and 22,218 hectares of farmland were submerged in the north. More than 19,000 people were left homeless by the latest floods and mudslides in the north, the agency said. The national meteorological office today again issued heavy rain warnings for Seoul and the north. It blamed the rain - this is supposed to be the height of the hot and dry season in Korea - on the "La Nina" weather phenomenon, which is producing unusually wet weather in the Eastern Pacific. "It's of historic proportions. This is the first time so many people were killed and lost in such a short period of time", an official with the disaster agency said. Most northern outlying areas of Seoul and some parts of the city were cut off from utilities and communications, he said. More than half of the residential areas in the north-western resort area of Kanghwa had been flooded. The resort received 620mm of rain in the 18-hour period until 1700 yesterday. It was the largest rainfall ever recorded in the country, the official said. The latest victims included nine soldiers, six of whom were killed yesterday in a landslide at a military unit in northern Kyonggi Province, the Defence Ministry said. Two soldiers died while attempting to save civilians and one was killed while on guard duty, the ministry said in a statement. Floodwaters turned sections of high-rise apartment blocks within the capital city of 10.3 million people into islands. Authorities warned civilians to take extra caution near river-beds since the floods had washed away mines and other explosives from military bases. The Han River, which bisects Seoul, was near flood levels yesterday and roads and parks along the riverbank were submerged. Vehicles had washed into the river and rescuers searched them for trapped passengers. Construction crews were out all over the hilly capital of ten million people today, clearing away mudslides and shoring up embankments.

8 August 1998 - More heavy rain pounded South Korea's highly populated central areas early today, as the country's anti-disaster agency said the death toll from recent rains and floods had passed 200. The central areas were under a torrential rains alert or warning, with possibly more than 120 millimetres of rain expected during the day, the agency said. Subway trains in Seoul were operating with few delays but major highways in the capital remained closed, causing severe traffic jams in surrounding areas. Military units have been mobilised to search for mines and other explosives washed away in the northern regions of the country near the border with North Korea and civilians were warned to stay clear of suspicious objects in river-beds. The National Disaster Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters said the death toll from the week of flooding had risen to 204, with 87 people missing and about 30,000 others made homeless. Officials at the disaster agency said the floods were some of the worst on record. Some 30,000 homes and other buildings were damaged and 22,400 hectares of farmland were submerged in northern areas, the agency said yesterday. (Later) The death toll from landslides and floods today rose to 212. The US Forces Korea Command said two American soldiers were killed and 12 injured by a mudslide early today, while on a training mission near a mountain south of Seoul. Subway trains in Seoul were operating with delays but major highways in the capital remained closed, causing severe traffic jams in surrounding areas. Seoul City Government's anti-disaster officials said the water level of the Han River bisecting the city stood at 6.64 metres, about four metres below a dangerous level. It said 94 people, including two South Korean soldiers, were missing, and 25,880 others had been made homeless.

10 August 1998 - Heavy rains returned to South Korea today, hampering search and recovery work after some of the worst flooding on record had left 234 people dead and 91 missing nation-wide. The disaster had also left more than 121,000 people homeless. Some 46,800 hectares of farmland, mostly rice fields, were flooded while 36 roads and three railway lines remained closed, the National Disaster Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters said in a statement. More than 44,000 homes and buildings were damaged along with 779 roads and bridges in rain-induced disasters. The government had not finished assessing the damage as search and rescue operations were currently more urgent and the rains had not stopped, a disaster official said. Yonhap, the national news agency, reported property losses would reach two trillion Won ($1.48 billion). Local media reports said South Korean military units had lost ten tons of mines and other munitions in the floods. Soldiers were searching for the munitions and civilians had been warned to stay clear of suspicious objects in riverbeds. The agriculture ministry said 10 percent of the crop on the flooded 40,000 hectares of rice fields could be lost. The price of cabbages, lettuce and cucumbers also soared due to damage. The government planned to release vegetables stocked in state-run warehouses to satisfy consumer demand and halt rising prices, the ministry said. More rain is forecast, with Seoul and most northern regions expected to receive another 85mm to 150mm from today until tomorrow morning, a Korea Meteorological Administration official said. The weather office issued a heavy rain warning for Seoul and northern areas of the country.

11 August 1998 - More rain was on the way for South Korea, as the death toll after some of the country's heaviest rains on record mounted to 246 with 80 others missing and feared dead, officials said today. A heavy rain alert has been issued for the southern regions of the peninsula, said a spokesman for the Korea Meteorological Administration. "Rain clouds have moved south for now, but sporadic rains will continue through out the week", he said. In the first ten days of August, Seoul and northern regions received 70-80 percent of the rainfall they usually get in a year, he said. These regions normally receive 1,200-1,400mm of rain a year, he said. Seoul received 939mm of rain in the ten-day period. A break in the northern region's stormy weather made search operations easier today, but officials held out little hope survivors would be found. "It would be highly improbable to find many survivors among the missing", said an official with the national disaster agency. In Changheung, a small resort town in the mountains north of Seoul, South Korean soldiers today used metal detectors and probes to search for seven tonnes of live ammunition lost in the sludge left behind by floodwaters. Floods and mudslides hit the south of the country more than a week ago, before heavy rain spread the chaos to Seoul and further north. More than 140,000 people have been left homeless after flash floods and mudslides destroyed homes, factories, roads, railways and bridges last week. Most of the homeless were being cared for at schools, churches and town halls, the National Disaster Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters said in a statement. Some 47,000 hectares of farmland, mostly rice fields, were flooded while 36 roads and three railway lines remained closed, the disaster agency said. More than 47,000 homes and buildings were damaged along with 1,125 roads and bridges. Local media reports said store owners in some northern areas were forced to ward off looting attempts at night after working by day to clean up their shops. Police could not confirm the reports. The government has not fully assessed the damage, the disaster agency said. The national news agency Yonhap said losses would reach Won two trillion ($1.48 billion). A central Bank of Korea official said on Monday the damage to factories and farmland could cause a steeper drop in the gross domestic product this year than the 4 percent contraction projected by the government and the International Monetary Fund.

12 August 1998 - Flash floods and mudslides in South Korea have left 330 people dead or missing and caused at least $283 million in damage, the national disaster agency said today as rain returned to the south-east. Record rains over the Korean peninsula in the first ten days of this month triggered flash floods and mudslides in this hilly country that killed 255 people and left another 75 missing and feared dead, the agency said. Officials held out little hope many survivors would be found. The rain-induced disasters have left 140,000 people homeless and damaged or destroyed 1,500 homes, 1,125 roads and bridges, and 187 sections of rail lines, the National Disaster Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters said in a statement. Heavy rains returned today, with the south-east bearing the brunt. Weather authorities issued heavy rain warnings for most of the peninsula. They said a few south-eastern and central areas had already received up to 490mm of rain overnight.

13 August 1998 - Flash floods and mudslides in South Korea have left at least 262 dead and 78 missing, revised figures from the national disaster agency said today. The figures were down from 311 people dead and 80 missing provided by an official in the National Disaster Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters yesterday. Record rains over the Korean peninsula in the first two weeks of this month triggered flash floods and mudslides that have also caused at least 525.5 billion Won ($394 million) in damage across the country, the disaster agency said in a statement. Officials held out little hope many survivors would be found among the missing. The rain-induced disasters have left 150,000 people homeless and damaged or destroyed 1,500 homes, some 3,000 roads and bridges, and washed away 7,300 graves, the disaster agency statement said. Heavy rains returned briefly yesterday, with the south-east bearing the brunt of what the local media have called "guerrilla rains", coming during what should be the dry part of the Korean summer. Some south-eastern areas received some 16 inches of rain yesterday, weather forecasters said. Heavy rain warnings were still in place for most of the south today, they said. Some 30,000 civilians were evacuated to the safety of makeshift shelters, local media said. Seoul and northern regions have received 70 to 80 percent of their annual average rainfall just in the first ten days of August, the meteorological office said. South Korea's unification ministry said North Korea had not been hit as hard by the rains. A central Bank of Korea official said the damage to factories and farmland could cause a steeper drop in the gross domestic product this year than the 4 percent contraction projected by the government and the International Monetary Fund.

14 August 1998 - Heavy rain returned to South Korea today, bringing rainfall of up to 180mm in some areas and wreaking more havoc, officials said. "The rains are expected to fall from late today, continue on over the weekend (15-16 August) and ease off from Monday", said a Korea Meteorological Administration official. "We believe the rains will not be as damaging as the past weeks, but we should brace ourselves all the same". The death toll reached 267 with 73 others missing from the last two weeks of rain, which have also caused damage of at least Won 700 billion ($525 million), a figure which has mounted by the day. Officials held out little hope that many survivors would be found among the missing. Seoul and other northern regions received 70-80 percent of their annual average rainfall in the first ten days of August, the meteorological office said. The south-western city of Kwangju was pelted by 120mm of rain yesterday, a weather official said. A heavy rain alert was still in place in the region, which was likely to see another 150mm of rain today, the National Disaster Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters said in a statement. The rain-induced disasters have left 150,000 people homeless, damaged or destroyed 1,500 homes and some 3,000 roads and bridges, and washed away some 9,000 graves, the statement said. Three railway lines remain closed. Soldiers and workers laboured to clear 140,000 tonnes of trash left behind from the floods while volunteers and Red Cross workers provided food and medical aid to flood victims, the disaster headquarters said.

17 August 1998 - The death toll from floods and mudslides in South Korea has risen to 273 dead with another 65 missing and feared dead, the nation's disaster agency said today. The flooding also forced some 16,000 people to leave their homes and caused about Won 1.16 trillion ($868 million) worth of property damage, latest figures from the National Disaster Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters showed. The rains have also fully or partially destroyed 1,982 homes, 1,994 roads and bridges and washed away some 9,000 graves, the disaster agency said in a statement. Three railway lines remained closed. "In terms of rainfall frequency and quantity, the rains show signs of easing off, but it's impossible to tell when they will come to an end", said an official in the Korea Meteorological Administration Office. "The characteristics of the recent rains are vast quantities of unpredictable outbursts over a drawn-out period of time", he said. About 80,453 hectares of farm land, much of it rice paddies, have been flooded, officials with the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry said. The floods have already receded from 98 percent of the total flood-hit farmland, they said, but it was too early to estimate the actual damage. The ministry said it was still projecting that 1.04 million hectares of rice paddies this year would produce 4.89 million tonnes of rice. The floods also destroyed 1,616 irrigation facilities and killed 2.4 million animals, mostly poultry, they said.

6 August 1998 - Western Sudan

Keyword: Floods

Fourteen people died and 4,000 families were made homeless after floods from heavy rain swept villages in western Sudan, newspapers said today. Villagers in Southern Darfur state told Al-Rai Al-Akhar Daily the rains this week were the worst they had ever seen. Last week, one person died and 950 families were made homeless by floods in Northern Darfur. 10 August 1998 - Nicosia, Cyprus

Some 45 people, mainly elderly, have died in a scorching heatwave gripping Cyprus and hundreds more required hospital treatment over the weekend, the authorities said today. Temperatures in Nicosia have soared to 43 degrees Celsius in recent days, about five degrees higher than normal. The heatwave, one of the most severe in the past 30 years, is expected to ease by Wednesday (12 August), the Meteorological Office said. 10 August 1998 - Istanbul, Turkey Keyword: Floods

Seven people have died and around 50 are reported missing after floods swept through a village near Turkey's eastern Black Sea coast, newspapers said today. Local residents said dozens of buildings had been swept away in the floods, which destroyed much of Beskoy village, east of the city of Trabzon. NTV news channel showed a helicopter bringing food supplies to the isolated village, much of which was swallowed up by a muddy landslide which swept through the valley. It said the floods, which occurred during the weekend after sustained heavy rain, had severed communication links with the surrounding area. The flooding was out of step with a heat wave that has swept much of the rest of Turkey in the last two weeks.

11 August 1998 - Floods have killed at least ten villagers near Turkey's eastern Black Sea coast and hope faded today for 30 more in homes engulfed by mud. Some 300 buildings were destroyed during heavy rains at the weekend. Much of the village of Beskoy, east of the city of Trabzon, is covered by mounds of mud. The bodies of ten citizens have been found so far, Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz told Anatolian news agency during a visit to the area. Nearly 40 villages were still cut off by washed-out roads.

13 August 1998 - Turkish rescue officials said today there was no hope of finding any survivors among some 50 people missing after floods swept the country's eastern Black Sea coast last week. "We have a list of 46 missing people. It is impossible to stay alive under the mud for such a long time", a local gendarmerie officer said from the town of Trabzon. Floods caused by heavy rain killed at least ten villagers last Friday (7 August) and destroyed some 300 buildings, leaving a number of settlements under thick mud in Trabzon province. He said local gendarmerie units, along with civilian rescue workers, were trying to clear up the mud. The officer said most of the roads cut off in the flood had been reopened to traffic.

14 August 1998 - Uttar Pradesh, India

Keyword: Landslides

At least 58 people have been killed by landslides in the Himalayan region of the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the Star News television channel reported today, quoting state officials. The satellite channel said 36 bodies had been recovered in the region around Ukhimath, a town on the route to the Hindu pilgrimage centre of Kedarnath. Officials said in Lucknow that the region had been hit by rainfall and landslides over the past week. Star News, which did not say when the deaths took place, said several villages were severely affected. The Press Trust of India also reported the recovery of 36 bodies in the region. "It is difficult to say the exact number but it seems 58 have died and 36 bodies have been recovered", Ramesh Pokharial, a state government minister, told the television channel from the district town of Pauri. "Entire villages are believed to have been swept away", Star News said. Pokharial said relief work was severely hampered because roads had been badly damaged.

16 August 1998 - Sanaa, Yemen

Keyword: Floods

Floods caused by heavy rains have killed at least 27 people over the past two days in Yemen and ten others were missing, an official said. The deaths raised to 41 the number of people killed by flooding in the country over the past few weeks. Heavy rain lashed Yemen today, causing several road accidents. 17 August 1998 - Kano, Nigeria

At least 15 people were killed when buildings collapsed during torrential rain in the Nigerian city of Kano, the local Guardian newspaper said today. The paper said at least 20 mud buildings collapsed over the weekend (15-16 August) in different districts of Kano, northern Nigeria's largest city.

18 August 1998 - At least 5,000 people have been left homeless in south-eastern Nigeria after a river burst its banks following a weekend (15-16 August) downpour, a local newspaper said today. The Daily Times said the flood at Ikom in Cross River State, near the border with Cameroon. had destroyed 500 homes and hundreds of hectares of farmland. Some roads have also been cut off.

18 August 1998 - Northern India

Keyword: Landslides

Dozens of people, many of them religious pilgrims, were feared dead today after a landslide struck a village in northern India. More than 60 people were swept away when a hillside near the mountainous border with China collapsed early this morning, but immediate reports of as many deaths could not be confirmed, a local Indian official said. Many of the missing were pilgrims trekking to Kailash Mansarovar in western China, the official said. "Several temporary huts in Malapa village, in which nearly 60 pilgrims on their way to Kailash Mansarovar were staying, and about eight to ten huts in the village were washed away in a landslide at 3.30 am", PC Joshi, administrative officer in Pithoragarh district, said. "There is no information so far on the number of people killed", Joshi said. "The huts were washed away towards Kali river". Joshi said some Indo-Tibet Border Police who were accompanying the pilgrims had also been caught in the landslide. Malapa is about 160km from Pithoragarh and some 640km from the capital of India's northern Uttar Pradesh state, Lucknow. Joshi said border-police rescue parties from the posts nearest to Malapa had rushed to the scene and further details would be known only when they returned later today. The Press Trust of India quoted Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma as saying 60 people were reported to have died in the landslide, including ten border police. United News of India said at least 100 people, of which about 60 were pilgrims, were feared killed in the landslide.

19 August 1998 - Severe thunderstorms, heavy rains and a thick envelope of fog blocked rescue helicopters from taking off for a remote region of northern India where more than 210 people have died in a massive landslide. Incessant torrential rains triggered a massive landslide in Malpa village sweeping tents of at least 60 Hindu pilgrims who were on their way to a sacred lake shrine, Kailash Mansarovar, in neighbouring Tibet. The landslide and flash floods wiped out the entire Malpa village, killing an estimated 150 people. Indian Air Force helicopters are waiting to take off to air drop rescue workers to search for survivors. District Magistrate of Pithorgarh district, L.R. Yadav, says, "it is not possible to account for the exact number of dead people as several people are believed to have been washed away in flash floods". He said that bad weather is hampering relief operations: "It is all cloudy and foggy out there". A few Indo-Tibetan Border Police troops trekked to the landslide site last night and recovered nine bodies. The rescue crews cannot reach the site as the region has become inaccessible as the only road link has been washed away.

19 August 1998 - In a fresh landslide today, in another part of Uttar Pradesh, 25 people were killed, officials said. The landslide swept Mansuna village in the Garhwal Himalayas, some 600km from Lucknow. Meanwhile state officials were struggling to launch rescue operations in yesterday's landslide which hit Malapa village. Ten bodies had been recovered from the area, officials said. The first group of rescue workers drawn from the Indian army and border guards reached the landslide zone this morning but made little progress because of bad weather, officials said. Four Indian air force helicopters flew over the area but could not land because of poor visibility. It is unlikely that many people could have survived as 15 metres (50 feet) of debris is reported to have settled over the (Malapa) camp. There is no information on the dead or survivors.

20 August 1998 - Mankind played a hand in giant landslides that are feared to have killed hundreds in the Himalayan hills of north India this week, experts said today. Amid reports that the death toll from the land slips could top 300, a finger of accusation was pointed at deforestation on the steep foothills of the world's highest mountains.

21 August 1998 - Hopes of finding survivors buried under massive Himalayan landslides receeded today as overnight rains disrupted the Indian army's rescue work, officials said. As many as 239 people were missing and feared dead this week in landslides which paralysed the mountain districts of the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the province's chief minister Kalvan Singh said yesterday. "I will be rather conservative. I will put the toll at 178", Gautam Kaul, director-general of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) said. Kaul said six helicopters took off from Bareilly but could not approach Malapa village, the main landslide site, and were waiting on two nearby helipads for the skies to clear. "The weather turned very hostile last night, so relief operations have been suspended", Kaul said. Indian officials said 202 people were missing and feared dead at Malapa. Most of the other victims were at Mansuna village, which was hit by a landslide on Wednesday (19 August). Smaller landslides were reported from elsewhere in the Garhwal region. Twenty-one bodies had been recovered from the rubble of the massive landslide by nightfall yesterday. Landslide debris blocked roads near Ukhimalh town and formed a huge lake by blocking the turbulent flow of the Mandakini river. The flooded area swelled to at least 6km in length, with a width of 80 metres and depth of 60 metres. The army worked briskly to control the damage. "The army has succeeded in creating a small passage to release the accumulated water as a result of the landslide", a district official in the town of Rudraprayag said. State-run All India Radio said rains continued as several army columns moved in to clear the narrow roads and help with rescue work. Authorities evacuated thousands of villagers along the Alaknanda and Mandakini river valleys yesterday. Monsoon rains, heavy fog and knee-deep mud made access to Malapa, in Pithoragarh district, almost impossihle yesterday and fresh rains stopped helicopters on their way at night.