Severe rainstorms and gales destroyed thousands of homes in two areas of central China, killing at least 21 people and forcing the evacuation of 37,000 in one of the areas, the government said on Saturday, DPA reported. The storms last week caused the collapse of 16,000 rooms in homes in Jiangxi province and 11,000 rooms in neighbouring Hubei province, where 37,000 people were evacuated, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said in a report on its website. Eleven people died in Hubei and seven died in Jiangxi, the ministry said, but the government's Xinhua news agency quoted officials as saying the death toll had risen to 10 in Jiangxi. The rainstorms caused damage estimated to cost some 800 million yuan (100 million dollars) in Jiangxi, affecting 1.73 million people in 345 townships last week. In the Hubei provincial capital, Wuhan, at least two people died and 39 were injured, eight of them seriously, China News Service said. The storms were the worst to hit the city since 1968, the agency said. It was not clear if the deaths in Wuhan were included in the provincial total. Homes belonging to 518 families in Wuhan were destroyed and 6,811 other homes were damaged, the agency said. Local governments have distributed bedding and other emergency supplies in the worst-hit areas of the two provinces, the reports said.
