国内英语新闻:Flood-hit families to get subsidies from government to rebuild homes

DUNHUA, Jilin, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- When a flash flood struck their village ten days ago, 55-year-old Fu Bailin and his relatives had no time to take any belongings as they fled, except for a bill of debt.

"All our belongings have been swept away. My 100-square-meter house was flattened. My 2.5-hectares of cropland was destroyed," said Fu, a soybean and corn farmer at the Yaodianzi Village in Dunhua City, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in northeast China's Jilin Province.

All the houses of the 286 families in the village were destroyed. Fu's family, including Fu, his 70-year-old father, his wife and son, along with their fellow villagers, now live in temporary tents in the local forest police headquarters in Dunhua. The forest police also provide meals for them.

Floods have left 85 people dead and 66 missing in Jilin over the past two months, local authorities said Saturday.

More than 5 million people have been affected since the flood season began in June and some 1.5 million people have been evacuated, the Jilin Provincial Civil Affairs Department said in a statement.

Additionally, almost 82,000 houses have collapsed and 198,000 others have been damaged, the statement said.

Economic losses were estimated at 45 billion yuan (6.6 billion U.S.dollars), it added.

In the hardest-hit areas, flash floods have cut roads, isolated villages and disrupted communications and water supplies.

Compounding the problems, more downpours were forecast to hit the province in the coming two days.