Several parts of China have been reeling under flood triggered by heavy rain that left 50 people dead and 42 missing.
According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, more than 10.4 million people have been affected by downpours in 399 counties in Inner Mongolia, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Chongqing, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, with 1.247 million in urgent need of aid.
Torrential rain since June 20 also toppled 34,000 houses and damaged another 89,000. Crops in 738,000 hectares were also lost in the deluge, resulting in direct economic losses worth 10.3 billion yuan ($1.62 billion).
The Ministry said some of the affected provinces had been battered by numerous rounds of heavy rain since April while other usually water-starved regions, including Inner Mongolia autonomous region, suffered record levels of rain which destroyed their crops.
The Ministry also noted that more than half of the affected counties and cities are in the country's impoverished regions and ethnic areas where local residents with already limited means of self-support largely rely on government aid, the Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.
Local governments in disaster-hit regions have poured more than 90 million yuan into living aid, including 20 million yuan allocated in Inner Mongolia --one of the hardest-hit areas, the Ministry said.
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