China's natural disasters claimed over 3,000 lives

2006 saw the highest number of deaths caused by natural disasters in China since 1998. A senior state official announced yesterday that the government will allocate more funds for the development of an advanced emergency response system.

According to figures published by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, natural disasters, such as typhoons, floods, landslides, mudslides, hailstorms and earthquakes, claimed the lives of 3,155 people in 2006. The figure is up 25 percent on the previous year.

1998 was an even more somber year with 5,511 people losing their lives in natural disasters in China. The majority of them perished due to heavy flooding in the Yangtze River area.

Last year, there were five major natural disasters in China, each of which claimed the lives of more than 50 people. About half of the total number of deaths from natural disasters were caused by typhoons, reveals Li Baojun, an official with the ministry's Department of Disaster Relief.

In addition to typhoons, building collapses, landslides and lightning strikes were among the other causes of fatalities.

Hunan, Fujian and Yunnan provinces were the worst hit by natural disasters with death tolls of 588, 503 and 409 people respectively.

When Typhoon Saomai, the worst storm to hit the country in 50 years, slammed into Shacheng Harbor in Fujian Province, the authorities were caught off guard. People's Daily Online quoted department director Wang Zhenyao as saying that though China had made progress in handling natural disasters, it still has to prepare better for extreme weather.

According to Wang, one of the biggest problems hindering the success of disaster prevention action is that people do not follow the authorities' advice to evacuate the areas in the path of an approaching danger. As a remedy, the government should work to raise people's awareness of action to be taken in event of imminent natural disasters.