国内英语新闻：Extreme weather conditions take toll on China

Many parts of China experienced extreme weather conditions including heatwaves, storms and floods last month, the China Metrological Administration (CMA) said on Friday.

Vehicles drive along a flooded street in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province August 14, 2007. Downpours caused flooding in the city and paralyzed local transport. [Xinhua]

Data indicated that last month's average temperature reached 21.6 C, 1.1 degrees warmer than usual. This is also the second-highest average temperature since 1951 and only 0.3 degrees lower than last August's average of 21.9 C, said Zhu Qiwen, deputy chief of the disaster forecasting and relief department of the CMA.

Northwest China's Qinghai Province was hit by its worst heatwave since 1951, with high temperatures also roasting Beijing, Gansu, Tibet and Inner Mongolia.

CMA head Zheng Guoguang said the country has been more frequently hit by extreme weather conditions this year.

The conditions match predictions in a weather forecast report jointly published by the CMA, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

It says that China's average temperature rose by 0.5 to 0.8 degrees in the 20th century. And the extreme weather's frequency and intensity are all under dramatic change.

The CMA's list of extreme weather events includes heavy rains and floods in East China's Shandong Province and Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region where rainfall increased 50 per cent. The severe flooding also triggered landslides, which resulted in 89 deaths in Southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Further north and west, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Shaanxi Province and Chongqing Municipality suffered from ongoing droughts.

Other events include lightning strikes that killed 109 and wounded another 43 last month. More than 588,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes in Central China's Hunan Province in the wake of Typhoon Sepat, which has left two people dead and seven missing in the province.