Flooding devastates large parts of Asia

FLOODS and landslides across Asia plunged millions into misery yesterday as rubble-strewn waters killed at least 127 in north-western China and four million Pakistanis faced food shortages amid their country’s worst-ever flooding.

Landslides inundated two villages in northern Pakistan, as heavy rain continued to hamper relief efforts.

Officials said 28 bodies had been recovered and 25 more people were missing after the landslides.

Meanwhile, in Indian-controlled Kashmir, rescuers raced to find 500 people still missing in flash floods that have killed 137, while North Korea’s state media said high waters had destroyed thousands of homes and damaged crops.

Residents fled to high ground or upper stories of apartment buildings in China’s Gansu province after a debris-blocked river overflowed during the night. An estimated 2,000 more people were missing in the latest deluge in a summer that has seen China’s worst seasonal flooding in a decade.

Worst hit was the county seat of Zhouqu in the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, where houses buckled and streets were smeared with a metre of mud and water.

The landslides struck after heavy rains on Saturday caused the Bailong River to burst its banks.

In Pakistan, 1,600 people have been killed and millions more left begging for help following the worst floods in the country’s history. Prices of fruit and vegetable skyrocketed yesterday, with more than 1m acres of crops destroyed and at least four million people in need of food assistance in the coming months.

Pakistan has worked with international partners to rescue more than 100,000 people and provide food and shelter to thousands more.

But the government has struggled to cope with the scale of a disaster that it estimates has affected 13m people.

At least 1.4m acres of crops were destroyed in the central province of Punjab, the breadbasket for the rest of Pakistan, the United Nations reported.

The swollen Indus River overflowed near the city of Sukkur in southern Sindh province yesterday, submerging the nearby village of Mor Khan Jatoi with chest-high water and destroying many of its 1,500 mud homes.

In India, rescuers dug through crushed homes and piles of mud searching for 500 people still missing after flash floods sent massive mudslides down remote desert mountainsides in Indian-administered Kashmir, officials said. There are about 500 others injured.

North Korea’s state media said 36,700 acres of farmland were submerged and 5,500 homes destroyed or flooded after recent heavy rains.