Flooding along the rain-swollen Huai River in eastern China has killed 13 people and left more than 1 million stranded, the official Xinhua News Agency reported this morning.
It was the highest death toll in flooding on the Huai in 12 years, Xinhua said. It didn't say when or where the deaths occurred on the river, which flows across several densely populated provinces.
The report came amid efforts to protect the industrial city of Bengbu, which lies on the Huai, by blowing up dikes upstream in order to divert flood waters into farmland.
Water levels along the length of the Huai were still dangerously high, but were starting to fall as rains eased and draining efforts took effect, Xinhua said.
China suffers flooding every summer when the rainy season swells rivers and lakes that have been hemmed in with dikes in an effort to reclaim land for farming and housing.
In emergencies, authorities destroy dikes upstream from major cities to let swollen rivers drain into farmland and rural townships.
The flooding has caused nearly 7.2 billion yuan (US$870 million) in damage in Anhui province, where Bengbu is located, and in the neighboring provinces of Jiangsu and Henan, Xinhua said.