Statistics show that weather-related disasters killed at least 2,705 people with a direct loss of 170 billion yuan (US$21 billion) by August 23, said Xu Xiaofeng, vice-director of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), at a televised conference to deal with weather-triggered disasters.

But the CMA death toll figures differed from those released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

According to ministry figures, natural disasters killed 2,207 people and caused another 555 to go missing, Li Baojun, a ministry official in charge of disaster relief, told China Daily on Friday.

The incidence and extent of the damage caused by bad weather such as drought, flooding, sandstorms and forest fires surpassed the previous year, Xu said.

For example, China has seen 19 periods of sand-drift this year, including five sandstorms, the most since 2000, said Xu.

The power of Saomai, the strongest typhoon since 1949 that hit China in August, even surpassed that of hurricane Katrina, which caused more than 1,000 deaths in the United States last year, he noted.

Severe drought savaged Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality and Sichuan Province for more than two months and continues to affect local residents, with the highest temperature exceeding 40 C, he said.

Xu said burning temperatures in Southwest China may drop in the next 10 days as more rainfall is forecast in the region.

At the same time, another two tropical storms will take shape on the sea in the next 10 days and one may affect South China's coastal area, he warned.

The rapid development of China's economy together with global warming could see weather-related disasters causing greater harm to industrial and agricultural production, traffic, transportation and everyday life than ever before, said Qin Dahe, head of the CMA.

He said appropriate weather services are needed to prevent and control forest fires, plant diseases and pests, geological disasters, earthquakes, dangerous chemical leakages and infectious diseases.

To better handle weather-triggered disasters, the CMA has drafted precautionary programmes and set up a special office for the management of such emergencies, said Qin.

Nationwide, 105 weather radar systems and 12,778 automatic weather stations have been established; and a network connecting 2,359 cities and counties with weather satellites in outer space has been set up.

More than 1 billion people could receive or access weather services each day through radio, TV, newspaper, mobile phone messages and from the Internet, said Qin.

To reduce casualties caused by natural disasters the country must strengthen forecasts by building more disaster observation stations in rural areas, said Qin.

Qin said the network would allow local governments to issue earlier warnings of natural disasters in rural areas and improve the ability to forecast where disasters might occur.

Statistics showed that rural areas account for 80 per cent of the deaths each year, mainly caused by natural and weather disasters such as drought, torrential rain, typhoons and landslides.

Natural disasters destroy 2 million homes each year and the majority are located in the countryside, Xinhua News Agency reported.

(China Daily 08/26/2006 page2)