16 dead in Sichuan mudslides

An aerial view shows a village besieged by floods in?Pujiang county of Chengdu city, Southwest China's Sichuan province, August 19, 2010. [Photo/Xinhua]

CHENGDU - Flooding and mudslides caused by heavy rain in Southwest China's Sichuan province have left at least 16 people dead and 66 missing.

Speaking at a news conference held by the information office of the Sichuan provincial government on Friday, Yan Weidong, chief of the emergency response office, said flooding and mudslides on Aug 12 had affected nearly 5.8 million people in 67 cities and counties.

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Yan said more than 10,700 houses had been destroyed and more than 100 highways were severed. In addition, some 5,067 hectares of arable land has been ruined.

The cities of Deyang, Guangyuan, Mianyang, Ya'an and Dujiangyan as well as the Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture, which were battered in the magnitude-8.0 Wenchuan earthquake two years ago, were the hardest hit areas.

Disaster relief was still arriving in Qingping township in Mianzhu city, Yingxiu town in Wenchuan county, Longchi town in Dujiangyan, and in Aba, Yan said.

Excessive rainfall on Wednesday and Thursday raised the water level in the Minjiang River in Wenchuan, inundating Dongjienao village, in Yinxing township, where silt had just been cleared away.

Flooding had also caused cracks in roads in Yingxiu and some of them could end up becoming cut off, said Zhou Yantong, an information officer in Wenchuan.

Workers were using three excavators and four heavy-duty trucks to remove silt and rocks from roads.

Yingxiu was at the epicenter of the devastating Wenchuan earthquake on May 12, 2008, which left 87,000 people dead or missing.

Mudslides dealt a heavy blow to the small town rising from the quake. Its losses from damaged residences, agriculture, infrastructure and post-quake reconstruction projects are around 630 million yuan ($93 million), said Luo Erji, deputy head of Wenchuan.

Some post-quake reconstruction projects, which were set to have been completed before Aug 26, will now have to be rebuilt, he said.

A devastating mudslide hit Gongshan county, Yunnan province, on

Wednesday. The local government is trying all possible means to carry out rescue works. However, poor road conditions and continuous rainfall has severely affected the operation, said Hou Xinrong, deputy head of Gongshan.

Until 7 pm on Friday, 12 were confirmed dead and 80 missing in the mudslide, said Hou.

Xinhua contributed to the story.