China allocates 649 million yuan for flood response, disaster relief

BEIJING, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Finance announced Wednesday that funding worth 649 million yuan (about 91 million U.S. dollars) had been allocated to support flood response and disaster relief efforts in multiple Chinese regions.

The central government funding, which was allocated Tuesday, will specifically support typhoon and flood response, as well as disaster relief, in the provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Anhui, Fujian, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu, and also in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Chongqing Municipality, the ministry said in a statement.

The funding will be used to assist these regions in doing work such as repairing damaged water projects and facilities, as well as investigating and eliminating safety hazards, to ensure the safe operations of water projects and facilities during the main flood season, the statement said.

The Ministry of Emergency Management said Monday that seven major river basins in China were bracing for the main flood season in August, a time when flood disasters may occur in multiple regions and water levels may rise beyond control lines in some rivers. It also warned that two or three typhoons would make landfall this month, affecting the nation's southern and eastern regions. ■