Floods in China
Date
China had serious flooding in 1998.
Location
The worst flooding was in the Hunan Province, around Donting Lake. This was the worst recorded flood along the Yangtze River. There were also floods in the north-eastern area of China.
Causes
The main cause of the flood was torrential rainfall over the course of a few weeks. In one downpour, Hunan Province received 12 inches of rain. There was so much rainfall over those few weeks that the Yangtze River was overflowing.
Effects
- Embankments were submerged.
- Houses were submerged beneath water.
- Lakes became like seas.
- Roads became canals.
- The autumn harvest was destroyed as the fields were flooded.
- Up to one fifth of the rice harvest was lost.
- As many as two thousand people died.
- Young children and elderly people got diseases as the water was full of rubbish.
- The oil fields were flooded.
- There was £15 billion worth of damage to homes and factories.
- 6 million homes were washed away.
- A quarter of a million people were affected by the flood.
