Death toll hits 50 after rain ravages Hunan

Fifty people have died and another 15 are still missing after rainstorms in the city of Zixing, Hunan province, local authorities said on Monday.

At a previous news conference on Aug 2, the city government reported that 30 people had died and 35 were missing. The bodies of 20 of those who were missing have since been found.

Search and rescue efforts are continuing, the local government said in a news release issued on Monday night.

Rainstorms unleashed by Typhoon Gaemi have battered Zixing since late last month, triggering flash floods and landslides. A total of 128,000 people have been affected, and 11,869 houses and buildings have collapsed, the city government said.

More than 23,400 people have been evacuated to safety, and 1,168 rescue workers, five helicopters and more than 80 drones have been deployed in the search and rescue efforts, it said.

All the disaster-stricken areas of Zixing have regained access to roads, electricity, communications and water, it added.

Volunteers from across the country have joined the city's disaster alleviation efforts.

Liu Yanling, a doctor at Xiangnan University Affiliated Hospital in Chenzhou, Hunan, has been helping treat residents of Zhimu village in Zixing since Aug 10.

The village is deep in the mountains and has almost 1,000 residents, mostly elderly people and their grandchildren. Liu has treated more than 100 villagers and visits them every day to give them medical packages and health advice.

She has learned the correct way to quickly cross temporary wooden bridges while on her rounds.

"I do not feel tired from walking the mountainous roads," Liu said. "They call me Doctor Liu, and I need to live up to their trust.

"I was born and raised in a rural area, and it's time for me to pay back. Knowing that I am here by myself, the villagers treat me very nicely. The gains far outnumber the pains."

Pei Jie, who works in Beijing, went to a village in Zixing on Aug 11 to volunteer and stayed there until Friday, when his annual leave came to an end.

He had planned to travel to Changsha and Shaoshan in Hunan during his leave, but decided to do something for the affected people in Zixing.

He visited villagers in their homes, worked with members of the Chinese People's Armed Police Force to clean the mud left behind by flooding and helped local children with their school work.

"There are many volunteers, and sometimes we were unable to take a shower after a day of hard work, but the inconvenience can be overcome," he said.

"Compared with local officials who jumped into the river to remove fallen branches that were blocking the waterway, what I have done is not worth mentioning."

Meanwhile, in Liaoning province, more than 300 people have been trapped in Jianchang county after torrential rain battered the region from Sunday to Tuesday, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Roads and communication to the county have been cut due to the heavy rain, and it is only accessible via satellite phone, the report said.

More than 50 firefighters in the county have started rescue work, and firefighters in the city of Huludao, which administers the county, have rushed to the scene, it said.

Frequent and severe rainstorms have wreaked havoc on southern and northern China, and as the flood season continues, the situation remains complicated, the Ministry of Water Resources said.

From July 16 to Thursday, 561 rivers in the country had reported waters hitting warning levels, 120 percent more than usual. China has reported seven rounds of strong rainfall and 25 floods in its major rivers, the most in records dating back to 1998, the ministry said at a news conference on Monday.

On July 20, Typhoon Gaemi brought 216.7 billion cubic meters of rainfall, 43 percent more than last year's strongest typhoon, Doksuri, the ministry said.

Zhu Youfangcontributed to this story.