Four killed in China after river bursts banks

Flooding has killed four people and forced the evacuation of 94,000 others in the northern Chinese port city of Dandong after heavy rains caused the Yalu river to breach its banks.

Rain continued to fall yesterday in the region, which borders North Korea, but the official Xinhua News Agency reported that water levels along the Yalu and its tributaries dropped below flood warning levels.

Four people died, including a couple in their seventies and a mother and son, after their homes were swept away by flash floods. On Saturday, floodwaters punctured a dyke between the river and an economic development zone in Dandong, inundating many districts.

In North Korea torrential rain and water from the overflowing Yalu – or Amnok as it is known in Korean – swamped houses, public buildings and farmland in more than five villages near Sinuiju, the city opposite Dandong.