BEIJING, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government has urgently allocated funding to support disaster relief efforts in the country's eastern regions currently dealing with torrential rains and severe flooding caused by Typhoon Dolphin, the 13th typhoon of the year.
The National Development and Reform Commission announced Monday that it has allocated 200 million yuan (about 29.46 million U.S. dollars) from the central government budget to support disaster recovery efforts in Zhejiang Province, east China following the devastation caused by the typhoon.
The funds will be primarily used for the emergency restoration of damaged infrastructure, including roads and water conservancy facilities, as well as public service facilities such as schools and hospitals, it said.
Typhoon Dolphin made its second landfall at Yueqing City in east China's Zhejiang Province at around 6:40 p.m. on Sunday, about an hour after it first landed at Yuhuan in Taizhou City, Zhejiang.
The Ministry of Water Resources has maintained a Level-III emergency response in Zhejiang, as well as a Level-IV response for six other provincial-level regions across eastern, central and northeastern China, instructing local authorities to strengthen monitoring and research efforts and step up patrols to detect and address potential hazards. It said that priority will be given to flood defense along small and medium-sized rivers and the prevention of mountain torrents.
Also on Monday, the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Emergency Management allocated 180 million yuan from the central natural disaster relief fund to support disaster-hit areas across the country.
Of the total, 120 million yuan was earmarked for five provinces -- Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, and Jiangxi -- to support emergency response and rescue efforts following the flooding and typhoon damage. The remaining funding was allocated to Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang to address ongoing drought conditions.
The National Meteorological Center (NMC) forecasts that from 8 p.m. Monday to 8 p.m. Tuesday, parts of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan and Hubei provinces will see torrential rain, with extraordinarily heavy rainstorms to hit southern Henan and northwestern Hubei.
While the moving speed of Typhoon Dolphin will slow down significantly after Tuesday, its remnant vortex is expected to linger and stall over the border areas of Hubei, Henan, and Anhui provinces, triggering a new round of regional heavy rainfall, the NMC said.
With the rain belt moving further northward, the NMC forecasts that from August 11 to 13, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in northern China will experience heavy rainfall, with the Chinese capital city Beijing to see heavy to torrential rain during the period. ■
