China counts cost of wild month of weather

BEIJING (Reuters) - China counted the cost of a month of storms, floods and landslides, revealing on Tuesday that at least 712 people died from natural disasters in July during a summer of wild weather.

On top of the confirmed deaths, another 163 people were missing from disasters that month, the Ministry of Civil Affairs announced, according to the official Xinhua news agency. It did not specify which disasters killed how many people.

China has, like other parts of Asia, suffered unusually intense rain and floods this summer. Flash floods in one county in central China killed 78 people and left at least 18 missing, state media said on Saturday.

The Yangtze and Huai Rivers have been swollen by heavy rain, breaking their banks in places and displacing millions of residents.

Other parts of the country are enduring drought.

In July alone, due to natural disasters, 464,000 homes and other buildings collapsed, 3.8 million people were evacuated, 26,670 square kilometers (10,300 square miles) of crops were completely destroyed and direct economic losses amounted to 62 billion yuan ($8.2 billion), the ministry said.

Severe drought in parts of China has left 7.53 million people short of drinking water, according to the Office of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

China's national forecaster warned on Tuesday that a tropical storm was driving towards Taiwan and was likely to hit the mainland's east coast on Wednesday.