China searches for six missing after truck falls into river in heavy rain
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Rescue workers walk past a damaged building following an earthquake at Taiyang village in Liuzhou, Guangxi.
PHOTO: REUTERS
BEIJING - Rescuers were searching on May 18 for six people missing after a pickup truck carrying 15 passengers fell into a flooded river in China’s south-western region of Guangxi amid heavy rain, killing four, state broadcaster CCTV said.
More downpours are expected after heavy rains drenched central and eastern China on the weekend, lashing provinces such as Jiangxi and Hunan, the weather authorities said.
“People first and life first” is the driving principle for response efforts, China’s emergency management ministry said in a statement, calling for all government departments to try to prevent accidents from heavy rainfall.
In a separate incident on May 18, a magnitude 5.2 earthquake killed two people and forced more than 7,000 in Guangxi’s city of Liuzhou to evacuate as search-and-rescue operations continued and the authorities warned of transport disruptions.
The authorities said that they have allocated 10,000 items of relief supplies for Guangxi’s earthquake and flood relief.
The rain would gradually move eastwards and southwards across China over the next three days, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said.
It warned of the worsening risk of mountain torrents, flooding in small and medium-sized rivers and urban waterlogging, among other threats.
The city of Jingzhou in the central province of Hubei declared measures to suspend work and business activities as part of its emergency response to flooding.
Daily rainfall in Yichang, also in Hubei, broke a 36-year record over the weekend, the Hubei Daily said. The authorities shut tourist sites and ordered schools to suspend outdoor classes. REUTERS
