Journalist missing in flood area ( 2003-09-11 09:23) (China Daily)
A newspaper photographer disappeared on Tuesday when he was covering the
flooding in eastern Shaanxi, an inland province in Northwest China.
Wang Wen, a 36-year-old photographer for the newspaper Weinan Daily, fell
into the water as his boat overturned on Tuesday morning when the third flood
crest on the Weihe River passed the Huaxian Hydrometric Station and broke part
of the embankment of the Luowen River, a tributary of the Weihe, according to
the Weinan Flood-Prevention Office.
The office said the other 13 people in the same boat also fell into the
water, including Liu Xinwen, the secretary of the Communist Party's Weinan
committee; Cao Lili, the city's mayor; and Yang Zhaomin, the commander of Weinan
Military District.
Those 13 were rescued from the water one after another that morning some 1.5
kilometres from where the boat overturned, but Wang was still missing yesterday,
the office said.
The third flood crest on the Weihe River, the largest tributary of the Yellow
River, was not so serious as the first two but it also caused damage. When it
broke part of its tributary's embankment, this threatened some 200 farmers, who
were moved to safe places early on Tuesday, the office said.
It added: "The flooding deposited more than 300 million cubic metres of water
in low-lying places of Weinan, which made more than 200,000 local people
homeless."
Since August 24, most parts of Shaanxi have been hit by continuous heavy
rain, which has caused serious flooding and landslides and loss of life and
property.
The provincial government has since allocated 40.8 million yuan (US$4.92
million) in aid to help disaster-stricken people and the flood-hit areas that
need materials for reconstruction, said the Shaanxi Provincial Flood-Prevention
Headquarters.
