50,000 evacuated in China
Three people were missing and more than 50,000 others evacuated in northeast China on Saturday after flooding along the Yalu river, which forms the border with North Korea, officials and state media said.
About 230 homes have collapsed in the city of Dandong and some transport, power and communication links have been cut off but no fatalities have been reported, the Xinhua news agency reported, citing the local government.
An official at Dandong's flood control headquarters confirmed the number of people missing and evacuated when contacted by AFP, but said he could not provide any further information about the emergency efforts.
Earlier, another official in the same office insisted the situation was "not serious" in the city of 2.4 million.
Xinhua however said that some roads were submerged along the river, and houses in Dandong were flooded with water that was knee-deep, after heavy rain which began early Friday swelled the water level in the Yalu.
Workers were racing to build a sand-bag flood barrier along the part of the river where the barriers had been breached, the agency reported.
Officials cited by Xinhua said only riverside areas, not downtown Dandong, had been affected.
Storms were expected to batter the area throughout Saturday.
Heavy summer rain across large parts of China has triggered the country's worst floods in a decade.
Nearly 3,900 people have been killed or left missing this year in China in flood-related incidents, including about 1,750 victims of devastating mudslides in a remote northwestern town on August 7-8, official figures show.
Chinese President, Mr Hu Jintao and other top Communist party leaders have made personal donations to help survivors of the disaster in Zhouqu, where at least 1,407 people were killed and more than 350 others are missing, Xinhua said.
Earlier this month, authorities suspended shipping and tourist traffic on the Yalu amid fears of flooding, as the waterway had seen more rain in a two-week period than at any comparable time in recorded history.
Thousands were evacuated at the time.
Across the border in North Korea, widespread flooding this summer has washed away homes, roads, railways and farmland, and caused an unspecified number of fatalities, according to state media reports from Pyongyang.
In 2007, the impoverished nation reported at least 600 people dead or missing from devastating floods.
Elsewhere in China, rescuers were still searching for about 80 people who went missing in rain-triggered mudslides in a remote part of the southwestern province of Yunnan. Twelve people have been confirmed dead, Xinhua said.
"The rescuers are at risk of sinking into the mud any time," the agency quoted military officer Yang Pingang as saying in Puladi township, where more rain was also expected.
"The task is dangerous," said rescuer Cao Dashuai.
Hundreds of homeless villagers have been moved to two temporary shelters in the township, Xinhua said.
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