The floods and related disasters have left a total of 1,138 people dead and 210 missing as of Aug. 27, said the Ministry of Water Resources at a press conference held in Beijing on Tuesday.

China's Water Resources Minister Chen Lei said the death toll so far this year was 50 percent less compared with the same period of previous years, thanks to effective prevention and control measures and orderly responses.

Mountain torrents claimed 469 lives, while landslides and mud-rock flows killed 409 people, accounting for 41 percent and 36 percent of the death toll respectively, said Vice Water Resources Minister E Jingping.

E said most of the death occurred during the peak rainy season of July and August.

Anti-flood facilities and efficient transfer of civilians have helped 46.152 million residents to avoid being hit by floods, and timely release of flood alert messages also prevented 203,000 people from being hurt by mountain torrent disasters, Chen said.

More than 800,000 people were safely transferred when the Huaihe River experienced great floods in this summer, and no casualties has been reported, Chen told the press conference.

The ministry's statistics showed floods in China has incurred 75.9 billion yuan (US$10 billion) of direct economic losses, and 139 million people were affected by severe rains and floods as of July 21.

Meanwhile, 5.32 million hectares of crops were damaged while 883,000 houses had collapsed.

The national economic losses went down by 12.9 percent compared with the same period of previous years, Chen added.

(Xinhua News Agency August 29, 2007)