Quake-hit China menaced by floods and landslides

BEIJING (Reuters) - Floods triggered by torrential rainshave killed dozens of people across China, as officialsstruggle to move thousands of victims of last month'searthquake to escape the threat of landslides caused bydownpours.

Already reeling from the May 12 quake centred on southwestSichuan province that killed more than 70,000 people, floods insouthern China have killed at least 57 people in recent daysand forced 1.27 million to move to safer ground, the Ministryof Civil Affairs said.

The floods have been especially heavy in southern Guangdongprovince, home to many of the country's export businesses.

By Sunday, 20 people in Guangdong had died in the floods,eight were missing, and more than 4,800 houses had collapsed,provincial flood officials told Xinhua.

Nearly 240,000 Guangdong residents were shifted to saferground, including 60,000 in Shenzhen, the trade hub next toHong Kong, the provincial water resources office said,according to the official Southern Daily.

State television showed footage of buildings submerged upto their second floors and troops rescuing stranded residentswith boats on streets-turned-canals.

"Many factories were soaked since the heavy rain startedlast Thursday," said Feng Fei, an office worker at an insurancecompany in Dongguan, a manufacturing hub north of Shenzhen.

"My company is not big, but we probably have to pay as manyas 10 million yuan (738,000 pounds) for about 200 cars damagedby the floods," Feng told Reuters by telephone, referring toinsurance settlements.

Officials estimated that economic damage from the floodsacross Guangdong had reached 3.8 billion yuan, much of it tofarms and fisheries.

ALERT FOR YELLOW RIVER

Rains have also pounded northwest China, killing two peoplein Longnan, a region in Gansu province, where hundreds died inlast month's earthquake.

Flooding has also been reported in Jiangxi province andGuangxi, a major sugar-producing region neighbouring Guangdong.

Analysts said the floods' impact on industrial andagricultural production would be limited.

"China has floods every year and droughts are a much moreserious problem for China's food supply and food prices," TingLu, China economist at Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong said.

But heavy rain likely in the next few days would "increasethe destructiveness of flood hazards and make the floodprevention and relief situation nationwide even more serious",Xinhua cited the Ministry of Civil Affairs as warning.

Adding to fears just months before the country hosts theOlympics, the national meteorological service said the 5,500-km(3,400-mile) Yellow River flowing through the north might alsosee "quite large" floods this year, Xinhua reported late onSunday.

The Yellow River, China's second longest after the Yangtze,has experienced devastating floods in the past, but in recentdecades has been more prone to water scarcity.

At a cabinet-level meeting on Monday, Chinese Premier WenJiabao ordered authorities to check renewed threats on damsstrained by floodwaters in quake-hit areas in Sichuan and partsof neighbouring provinces.

"Aftershocks have continued into the flooding season andrainfall has noticeably increased... (Officials) must carry outfurther engineering measures to eradicate threats on dammedreservoirs where dangers remain," he said in notes on themeeting posted on the central government website (www.gov.cn).

Landslides in quake-hit regions have caused dozens ofswelling "quake lakes" which officials fear could burst andthreaten thousands of people in villages downstream. The wallsof a number of existing dams were also weakened by the quake.

Authorities are struggling to evacuate tens of thousands ofpeople from quake-hit areas under threat from rain-triggeredlandslides and to provide housing for millions of people lefthomeless.

With tremors still jolting hillsides, officials havedecided to relocate 50,000 residents at risk of landslides inWenchuan County, the epicentre of the quake.

Last week, county officials told threatened residents tomove to safer areas, and troops had relocated 3,000 by Monday,Xinhua reported. All at risk must be moved by the end of June,before the rainy season starts in earnest, it said.

The flooding and foul weather is the latest in a string ofdisasters to befall China this year. Many of the same provinceswere paralysed by freak cold weather in January and February.

(Reporting by Chris Buckley, Guo Shipeng and Ian Ransom;Editing by David Fogarty)