Hebei was the worst hit, with 14 dead and 72 missing, the Ministry said in a statement late on Wednesday.
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In this Wednesday, July 6, 2016 photo, a truck loaded with people drives through a flooded street in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province.
Persistent heavy rain on Wednesday (July 20) caused widespread disruption in the Chinese capital, Beijing, forcing the delay and cancellation of hundreds of flights and the closure of some subway stations.
Xingtai is one of many cities in northern China that has been hard hit by torrential rains, flooding roads and wreaking havoc on public transportation. More than 100,000 travellers were affected.
Some high speed rail services were also delayed, said the rail authority.
So far, direct economic losses from the rain-triggered disaster reached 4.75 billion yuan (USD 711 million).
The heavy rainfall prompted Beijing’s meteorological department to upgrade the alert for torrential rain to “orange”, the second highest on its four-tier alert system.
The country’s worst flooding in recent history happened in 1998, when at least 4,150 people lost their lives, a lot of them along the Yangtze River.
At a meeting of the top government body, the Politburo standing committee, President Xi Jinping urged officials to be prepared for rescue work and flood control efforts as China is in its flood season, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Authorities this year have already taken emergency measures, including discharging water from the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze.
The civil affairs department relocated 67,158 people over safety concerns, as the provincial land resources bureau warned of flooding, landslides and mountain torrents.
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The first half of the year has seen 576 people recorded as dead or missing.
