Official says torrential rains, flooding kill 70 in southern China

clipped from www.foxnews.com Flooding caused by the heavy rains — which started a month earlier than normal — damaged more than 80,000 homes and damaging large swaths of cropland, affecting more than 10 million people across 13 provinces and cities, the State Flood Control and Disaster Relief Headquarters said on its website. "South China has already entered its flood season, one month earlier than in past years. The biggest floods have yet to come," Sun Jun of the National Meteorological Center was cited as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency. The areas include the provinces of Guangdong, Chongqing, Sichuan, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan and Zhejiang. In some areas, such as Guangdong province, the thunderstorms have cut power lines, toppled homes and bridges, submerged roads and caused rivers to overflow, forcing the relocation of 145,000 people in less than a week, Xinhua said. China's huge land mass means severe storms can cause floods in one region, while other parts of the country experience droughts.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Floods kill 70 in southern China (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Floods kill 70 in southern China (ctv.ca)
• Floods Kill 70 in Southern China (abcnews.go.com)
• 58 feared killed in southern China storms (calgaryherald.com)
• Man kills eight in China stabbing rampage (nationalpost.com)
• China suffers new knife attack (telegraph.co.uk)
• Man stabs 28 children at kindergarten in China (msnbc.msn.com)
• Man Stabs 28 Children at Kindergarten in China (time.com)
• Man stabs 28 kids at kindergarten in China (msnbc.msn.com)

China To Sterilise 10,000 To Curb Births

Image via Wikipedia

clipped from news.sky.com Health authorities are planning to sterilise nearly 10,000 people in southern China over the next four days as part of a population control programme. Some of the people in Puning City will be forced to have the procedure carried out against their will. Amnesty International says forced sterilisation "amounts to torture". Reports in the Chinese media say that Puning Health authorities in Guangdong Province have launched a special campaign to sterilise people who already have at least one child in order to ensure local birth control quotas are met. Chinese newspaper reports say that those who refuse to be sterilised have seen their elderly mothers or fathers taken away and detained. Hundreds of people in Puning are said to have been locked up. "Reports that relatives are imprisoned as a means of pressurising couples into submitting to surgery are incredibly concerning.

Related articles by Zemanta

• China Gets Tough About Birth Control (lockergnome.com)
• China Aims To Sterilise 10,000 People (news.sky.com)
• China: 10,000 forced esterilizations on Puning county (tea-and-politics.blogspot.com)
• Chinese officials launch campaign to sterilise 10,000 (telegraph.co.uk)