Rare winter floods ravages east China

Rare winter floods in east China's Jiangxi Province have caused estimated direct economic losses of 181 million yuan (28.3 mln U.S. dollars), the provincial government said Thursday.

At least 69 houses collapsed and over 134,000 people from 162 townships across the province were affected. The floods also damaged 20,040 hectares of farmland, resulting in over 64 million yuan direct losses to the province's irrigation works.

There has been an average of 174 millimeters of rainfall across Jiangxi since the beginning of November, more than four times the average for the month of around 40 millimeters.

Continuous rainstorms have formed flood crests in the upper and middle reaches of the Ganjiang River, a major river in the province, posing safety hazards to reservoirs along the river. Endi