111 people killed in floods in China

Torrential rains continued to wreck havoc in China with landslides and floods in northwestern province of Shaanxi killing 111 people and disrupting the train traffic between Tibet and the mainland.

Around 167 people were also missing during the past 11 days of torrential rains in the province.

Across China over 750 were killed in floods since the beginning of this year and the official media here stated the death toll could cross 1,000.

The floods have affected about 4.25 million people and forced 703,000 people to be evacuated mostly in south China, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency on Monday.

In Shaanxi, the worst-hit has been the Ankang City where 63 people have been killed, 119 are missing and 2,824 injured, according to a statement from the provincial government. The floods also caused an estimated economic loss of 9.56 billion yuan.

The floods have caused $ 23 billion worth of damage.

Meanwhile, the Three Gorges Dam, regarded as the world biggest, faced yet another test for its strength as it received record high quantity of waters from the country's longest river Yangtze on which it was built.

Flood flow is set to peak again today at the Dam on the swollen Yangtze River, forcing the water levels of the dam's reservoir to surge again.

Engineers of the dam, located in Yichang City, central Hubei Province, said the water level of the Three Gorges reservoir, which dropped a few centimetres over the weekend, might now rise to break its record high of the year -- 158.86 meters, or 13.86 meters above the warning line.

Meanwhile, rain-triggered disasters in western China have disrupted train services from Lhasa, capital city of southwestern China's Tibet Autonomous Region, railway authorities said today.

A train scheduled to leave Lhasa for Shanghai, China's largest city, tomorrow has been cancelled due to floods and landslides in Shaanxi Province.

The train line connecting Lhasa and Shanghai, the world's highest plateau railway, opened in 2006.

Trains on the line depart every other day and a one-way trip takes 49 hours.

Rains yesterday caused a landslide in Tibet's Bomi County that destroyed part of a highway linking Tibet and Sichuan Province, local police said.