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30,000 trapped after torrential rains hit NE China

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-07-28 17:10

CHANGCHUN - More than 30,000 people are reportedly trapped by floodwaters in a town in northeast China's Jilin province after torrential downpours.

Telecommunications were down in Kouqian Town, where the Yongji County Government is located, and more than 200 rescuers had been sent in, officials with the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters said Wednesday.

The train station of Kouqian was surrounded by floodwaters with more than 80 passengers and station workers trapped inside after the Xingshan Reservoir overflowed, the official told Xinhua.

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The rainstorms in the upper reaches of Wende River, a branch of Songhua River, had caused the flooding of Kouqian, the official said.

Jilin's Communist Party chief Sun Zhengcai and governor Wang Rulin were helping direct rescue and relief operations.

Rainstorms had lashed 85 townships in Jilin, and saturated the cities of Tonghua and Changchun, the province's capital. Precipitation over the past 24 hours had reached over 200 mm in some areas as of 9:30 am, said Zhu Qiwen, deputy chief of the Meteorological Bureau of Jilin Province.

In neighboring Liaoning Province, four people were killed in a rain-triggered landslide Tuesday morning in Kuandian county, Dandong city.

Nearly 10,000 others were relocated for safety reasons, said Jia Fuyuan, office director of Liaoning Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

The rainstorms had destroyed thirty-five bridges and more than 10,000 mu (666 hectares) of crops in Dandong City over the past three days, Jia said.

The National Meteorological Center said heavy rains would continue to pound northern Liaoning, central Jilin and southern Heilongjiang province, which borders Liaoning and Jilin, likely resulting in more floods and rain-triggered landslides.