DPA

BEIJING TORRENTIAL rain caused floods that left at least one person dead and 15 missing, and forced the evacuation of nearly 90,000 in southern China, the government and state media reported on Monday.

The floods affected some 200,000 people in the south-western province of Guizhou, where authorities reported 60,000 evacuated and the 16 people dead or missing, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said on its website.

In an earlier report, the ministry said at least 13 people were missing and 20,000 evacuated in Guizhou’s worst-hit area, Wangmo county.

Floods damaged 300 homes, cut power lines, blocked roads and caused estimated direct economic losses of 35 million yuan (5.4 million dollars) in Wangmo.

The Wangmo river was running 3 meters above its normal level on Sunday but had subsided by Monday, it said.

Another 28,000 people were evacuated in four nearby areas of the southern province of Hunan, where an estimated 1.2 million were affected by floods, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Emergency relief officials sent 100 tents, 2,000 quilts and 3,000 sets of clothes to help people made homeless by the floods in Guizhou, the agency said.

Meanwhile, in the eastern province of Zhejiang heavy rain washed carbolic acid into a river that is a source of drinking water to several urban areas, forcing local authorities to suspend supplies to more than 550,000 people.

The pollution occurred after a chemical tanker overturned and spilled its load close to the Xin’an river late Saturday, the agency said.

But the heavy rain brought relief to some parched areas of central China that recorded their worst spring droughts for about 60 years.

The drought had badly affected crops and forced some areas to cancel traditional rowing races planned for Monday’s Dragon Boat Festival.

Weather forecasters warned of more torrential rain in Hunan, Guizhou and other southern regions over the next three days.