By KUNA
Tokyo : Disasters caused by prolonged low temperatures, icy rain and heavy snow in the southern part of China in the past month killed 107 people and left eight others missing, state press reported Wednesday.
Direct economic loss was estimated at CNY 111.1 billion (USD 15.3 billion), Civil Affairs Minister Li Xueju told a national video conference on disaster relief, according to Xinhua News Agency.
Altogether, 21 provincial-level areas have been affected, and aout1.5 million people have been evacuated, while 1.93 million stranded passengers have been transported out, the agency said. The extreme weather affected nearly 24.4 million hectares of farmland and led to the collapse of about 354, 000 houses. The snow snarl, the worst in five decades, and even in a century in a few areas, caused death, structural collapse, blackouts, accidents, transport problems and livestock and crop loss in the country’s eastern, central and southern regions for about a month.
As power supplies, coal reserves and traffic were getting back to normal, and prices remain relatively stable in disaster-hit areas, Li warned the current disaster-relief work is still at a crucial stage, and the hardest time has far from gone by. “As the temperature rises, disasters induced by thawing snow and ice, such as geological disasters and environmental pollution, might occur, which might further aggregate losses,” he said.
Chinese President Hu Jintao has ordered all of the country’s military forces to continue to support the reconstruction work in disaster-hit areas. By Monday, China’s troops had sent 6.43 million soldiers and officers and 18.
69 million militia to help reconstruction.