THOUSANDS of rescue workers were dispatched to Zhuozhou in Hebei Province yesterday as the remnants of Typhoon Doksuri continued to wreak havoc on swathes of the city. Zhuozhou, a flooded city of over 600,000 residents southwest of Beijing, has borne the brunt of the worst storms to hit northern China in over a decade. The city borders Beijing, which was inundated with the most rainfall in 140 years between Saturday and early yesterday, official data showed. Nine people have died and six are missing in Hebei Province, local authorities said. Zhuozhou City is an area in Hebei that has been severely affected by rain-triggered floods. More than 134,000 residents have been affected, with over one-sixth of the city’s population evacuated. The publishing industry in Zhuozhou has suffered a heavy loss, Southern Metropolitan Daily reported yesterday. Countless books were soaked as floodwaters poured relentlessly into the warehouses of many publishing houses and book-selling companies. According to Book China, one of the earliest domestic online book sales platforms, some staff members used sandbags and wooden boards to protect their warehouses in Zhuozhou, but around 4 million books have been damaged by the flood. Apart from these booksellers, there is also a large number of printing factories, some of which also suffered huge losses in the flood. The local public security bureau said Tuesday the city faced water shortages and a partial power outage, adding that it urgently needed rafts, life jackets and emergency supplies. Residents said waters rose as high as four meters. Some 9,000 rescuers have been dispatched to Zhuozhou, with more rescue teams rushing over from neighboring Henan and Shanxi provinces, State broadcaster CCTV reported. A satellite image taken Tuesday showed Zhuozhou surrounded by floodwaters on three sides. The Global Times reported that a large amount of water was flowing from Beijing into three rivers around Zhuozhou. Hebei authorities said they had opened another flood diversion area in Yongding River yesterday to help ease the flooding. As the floodwaters flow south, the authorities in the city of Gaobeidian have evacuated 113,000 residents, as well as opened reservoirs to trap the excess water. In Tianjin Municipality, which neighbors Beijing, more than 35,000 people have been relocated from areas prone to flooding by the Yongding River, which has swollen amid intense rainfall. China’s Ministry of Water Resources on Tuesday afternoon raised the level of its emergency response to flooding in the Haihe River Basin to Level I, the highest level, as flood control work in the area enters a critical stage. (SD News) | 