Residents in Shanghai hold umbrellas as they walk in the rain on September 12 under the impact of Typhoon Chanthu. Photo: VCG

China has suffered complex and severe natural disasters and frequent extreme weathers and climate events during the first three quarters of this year, with floods, wind hails, droughts, typhoons, earthquakes and geological disasters as the major disasters. In total, 94.94 million people were affected, including 792 dead or missing. 

Apart from the major natural disasters, freezing weathers, snowstorms, sandstorms, forest and grassland fires and marine disasters of varying degrees also occurred, China's Ministry of Emergency Management noted in a statement on Sunday. 

The various natural disasters affected 94.94 million people, left 792 people dead or missing, and had 5.26 million people relocated. Besides, 157,000 houses collapsed and 1.75 million houses were damaged to some extent. About 10,583 hectares of crops were affected. Direct economic losses from these disasters totaled 286.4 billion yuan ($44.37 billion). 

Compared with the average figures of the same period over the past five years, the number of people affected by disasters, the number of deaths and missing people, the number of collapsed houses and direct economic losses decreased by 31 percent, 14 percent, 16 percent and 14 percent respectively, according to the statement. 

During the first half of this year, the overall situation of the disasters was relatively light, with 156 people dead or missing and direct economic losses of 40.86 billion yuan, both the lowest in the past decade. 

In the third quarter, due to severe storms, floods and typhoon disasters, provinces in northern China suffered obvious heavier losses than southern areas. 

During the first nine months, 39 heavy rainfalls occurred across China, with a national precipitation of 582 millimeters, 4 percent more than the average amount of previous years in the same period. 

Storms caused severe floods in Central China's Henan and Hubei provinces and Northwest China's Shaanxi Province in July and August. 

Although there were 16 typhoons formed in the northwest Pacific Ocean and South China Sea during the first three quarters, fewer than the average number of previous years by 2.5 typhoons, only three made landfalls in China. They had a wide range of influence in multiple places including Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Fujian and other coastal areas. 

Besides, most of the earthquakes that happened during the first three quarters occurred in the western areas including Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai, Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. 

A total of 453,000 people in 14 provinces suffered from the earthquakes including nine deaths and 62,000 houses that collapsed or were severely damaged, causing direct economic losses of 8.2 billion yuan. 

Global Times