Pingyuan county floods leave 38 dead, 2 missing

At least 38 people have been killed and two are missing after catastrophic floods struck Pingyuan county in the eastern part of Guangdong province over the previous week, the county flood control department said in a statement on Friday.

According to the statement, 2,247 houses have collapsed, 3,202 others have been damaged, and 55,388 residents have been affected by the floods.

The county reported 4,697 road collapses, causing a total of 356 kilometers of highway surfaces, plus 111 bridges, to be damaged, it said.

The flooding also affected 6,759 hectares of farmland and 452 hectares of aquaculture farms.

According to the statement, since the flood season began on April 4, the county's cumulative precipitation has reached 1,221.6 mm, doubling the figure recorded during the same period of previous years. In particular, the county witnessed an extreme rainstorm from 8:00 to 20:00 on June 16, with an average rainfall of 199.1 mm, including four towns reaching more than 300 mm.