71 die in south China floods
Updated on 11 June 2007
Torrential rains cause severe flooding in which 71 people are killed and more than 600,000 displaced.
A typhoon swept across six provinces south of the Yangtze river.
Roads have been turned into rushing rivers, flooding cities, towns and villages across southern China.
The government says nine million people are affected by the flooding - and this is just the beginning of the typhoon season.
In Hunan province it has been raining for six days straight. The government has activated the highest level emergency response.
Hundreds of thousands are now homeless and some are missing, feared swept away by the rising tide.
Relief workers are out in boats trying to rescue the thousands left stranded. In some areas the torrential rain has triggered land and mudslides, destroying crops, roads and houses.
Chinese meteorologists expect the heavy rain to continue at least until Thursday, and there could be worse floods later in the summer.
Hundreds of thousands are now homeless, and some are missing, feared swept away by the rising tide.
Government scientists believe they are seeing the impact of climate change, with more torrential rain and other extreme kinds of weather.
Moreover, the glaciers which feed China's great waterways, the Yellow River and the Yangtze, are beginning to melt.
The Chinese government says the glacier area around Mount Everest has shrunk by some 21 per cent. In the short term, glacier melt will increase flooding downstream, but in the long term it will lead to drought as the source of the great rivers of Asia dries up.
The level of the Yangtze is low now, but meteorological conditions this year are similar to 1998, when heavy floods killed more than 3,000 people.
And the flooding is expected to be exacerbated by the glacier melt. The Three Gorges dam is designed to minimise flood damage, but it won't be fully operational until next year.
The Chinese government is once again being forced to think about climate change - not because other governments are criticising the increase in its carbon emissions but because its own citizens are feeling the effects.
