Natural disasters leave 66 dead, missing in Q1

Natural disasters left 66 people dead or missing, and affected some 21.78 million people in the first quarter in the Chinese mainland, the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) and National Disaster Reduction Committee (NDRC) said Monday.

Natural disasters resulted in direct economic losses of 9.63 billion yuan (US$1.53 billion) from January to March, according to a joint statement issued by the MCA and the NDRC.

Bad weather detrimentally affected more than 2.4 million hectares of crops and caused the collapse or damage of 200,000 homes, the statement said.

Drought, extremely low temperatures, snow, quake and landslides were the main natural phenomena during the period, but the overall damage inflicted by the disasters was not as serious as in previous years, the statement said.