【 华尔街日报 8.8】Mudslides Wreak Havoc in China

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Mudslides Wreak Havoc in China
BEIJING—China's Premier Wen Jiabao flew to a part of western China where massive landslides have killed at least 127 people and left more than 1,000 missing, Chinese state media reported Sunday, as torrential rains continued to wreak havoc around the country.
According to reports from the Xinhua news agency, heavy rain caused the Bailong River to overflow its banks, triggering landslides that buried buildings in Zhouqu county in northwest China's remote Gansu province, leaving nearly 1,300 people unaccounted for.
About 45,000 people have been evacuated, and police and military forces were sent in to help with rescue efforts. More than 680 residents were rescued by local residents, Xinhua said.
Xinhua said that two-meter deep sludge in some areas had left many people trapped on top of buildings.
Deadly floods have long plagued China, but this year's floods have caused the most economic damage and loss of life in more than a decade.
According to a report Thursday in the People's Daily, the official publication of the Chinese Communist Party, 28 provinces have been hit by floods this year, affecting 140 million people and destroying 1.1 million homes.
It put the death toll at 1,072 for the year, excluding those who have died in the landslides over the weekend.
Mr. Wen's flight to the disaster area has him reprising his role as the face of Beijing's central government during times of catastrophe. Mr. Wen, perhaps most famous for his emotional appeal to school children trapped under the rubble of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to hold on, has arrived early at the scene of tragedies ranging from mining disasters to snowstorms, helping to make the country's leadership seem more accessible and compassionate amid much public disillusionment with China's officials.
In late June, Mr. Wen went to southern China's Guangxi province when the death toll from the floods was nearing 200.
According to Xinhua, Mr. Wen and President Hu Jintao have instructed the government in Gansu to spare no effort to save lives, and that key infrastructure should be repaired quickly to ensure a more effective rescue effort.
The Bailong River runs south through Gansu province before linking up with the Yangtze River. Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, where the disaster struck, is located on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau in southwest Gansu and is predominantly grasslands.
China's far-flung western regions have been hard hit with natural disasters recently. In April, more than 2,000 people died in a major earthquake in the predominantly Tibetan Yushu prefecture in neighboring Qinghai province.
So far,this year's death toll is well below the 4,150 that died in 1998 when the worst floods in five decades tore through the Yangtze River basin.
—Juliet Ye contributed to this article.
原文链接：http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703589404575416733615386418.html?mod=asia_home

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