Fears of disease have followed the devastating floods that killed over 200 people in the last few days, though reports of three typhoid cases in the central province of Hunan were denied by local officials in yesterday's Chongqing Morning News.

Duan Zhigao, from Shaoyang City's Disease Prevention and Control Center, said that there had been one case of typhoid in Xinshao County but that it predated the floods, having been diagnosed on May 22.

Local governments have stockpiled inoculations to be given free of charge to flood victims.

The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said yesterday that no more flood casualties have been reported since it and the Ministry of Civil Affairs released an updated death toll of 204 and 79 missing on Saturday.

At that time, Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu, in charge of the headquarters, urged "the full implementation of all anti-flood and drought measures so that human casualties and property losses can be mitigated and the safety of key cities and communication lines guaranteed."

As of last night, 17.1 million people in 16 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions had been affected by floods. An estimated 1.8 million hectares of arable land has been affected and 137,900 houses destroyed by the heavy rains and subsequent landslides.

In stark contrast, some areas, such as southwest China's Yunnan Province, are suffering from serious drought, with over 6.6 million hectares of farmland in 11 provinces affected, and 11.1 million people and 6.4 million livestock experiencing a shortage of drinking water.

Meteorologists warned that flooding on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River are likely to worsen in the next ten days as 220 millimeters more rain is predicted to fall.

Xiao Ziniu, deputy director of the National Meteorological Center, said "rainstorms will sweep over the provinces of Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi, Hubei, Sichuan and the municipality of Chongqing" this week.

(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency, June 6, 2005)