Floods and mudslides in China leave 16 dead, 4 missing

Floods and mudslides in northern China have left at least 16 dead and another four missing, the government said Thursday.

Torrents of heavy rain from Sept. 24 to Oct. 2 have caused the biggest floods in a decade along the Weihe and Hanjiang rivers in Shaanxi province, the official Xinhua News Agency said. A man who answered the telephone Thursday at the Shaanxi provincial government office confirmed the figures but said he had no other information. He refused to give his name.

Some 359,200 people were evacuated and 39,200 homes were razed, Xinhua said Wednesday. Railways, highways and irrigation projects were damaged, it said, while tens of thousands of hectares (acres) of crops were destroyed.

It did not give any more details on the deaths.

The flooding has since receded, it said, reports the AP. I.L.