BEIJING - A week of heavy rains and floods has left more than 200 people dead in southern China and raised the threat of water-borne disease such as typhoid, the China Daily said on Monday.
Three people already died of typhoid in Xinshao county in southern Hunan province, the newspaper said, referring to the most severely hit area where the worst mountain torrents in local history had left scores dead and thousands homeless.
"Disease is now a major threat," it said, adding local governments were stockpiling supplies of typhoid inoculations and diarrhoea treatments for free distribution.
Torrential rains, which sparked flooding and mud slides that had killed 204 people and left 79 missing by Sunday, were expected to continue in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River over the next 10 days, the China Daily said.
"Geological disasters like landslides and mud flows will happen in provinces like Guizhou, Hunan, Sichuan and Guangdong," the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Nearly 138,000 houses had been destroyed and huge tracts of arable land swamped by water and mud, the China Daily said.
China suffers widespread flooding and drought each year, causing huge loss of life.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
