Heavy rains leave 10,000 stranded at Chinese airport

Nearly 10,000 passengers were stranded today at an airport in northeastern China after heavy rains and fog reduced visibility, severely hampering the flights operation, authorities said.
Only two flights have left and 16 landed at the airport in Dalian city, instead of the 467 listed on schedule, the airport operation center said.
Meanwhile, the local weather bureau has forecast that the heavy rains will continue, which is likely to further reduce visibility.
A new round of rainstorms pounded southwest China's Sichuan Province over the past two days, flooding townships, disrupting road traffic and forcing thousands of people to relocate.
Floods and landslides have already in last week left 58 people dead and 175 others missing here.

In the city of Guangyuan, flooding has forced the evacuation of 12,300 residents, a city government statement said yesterday.

The extreme weather is expected to last till tomorrow in most parts of Sichuan, the provincial meteorological center said.
Torrential rain over the past two days has also wreaked havoc in the city of Zhaotong in Yunnan province.
Three people have died and over 53,000 affected due to the prevailing weather conditions, which has damaged thousands of hectares of crops in five counties and districts in Zhaotong, a report in the state-run news agency Xinhua said.