Fourteen dead from heavy rains in China

BEIJING About 20,000 people affected by the floods have been moved to safer places and given food and water, the city's Communist Party propaganda department said in a statement late Thursday.

The flooding and landslides since Wednesday also have left 40 people missing in Sichuan's Mianyang city, it said.

More than 42,000 houses have been destroyed, the statement said. The official Xinhua News Agency reported that rescuers were struggling to repair damaged roads and restore water and electricity supplies.

The bad weather and landslides come as large parts of Sichuan province are still recovering from the May 12 quake that left nearly 70,000 dead and made 5 million homeless.

Since then the government has been rebuilding schools and roads and other infrastructure in the area.

Many of the counties hit by the latest heavy rains were ravaged by the earthquake, including Beichuan in northern Sichuan, which was almost completely flattened. The quake also left another 18,000 people missing and presumed dead.

Nine died in Beichuan in the flooding. Xinhua said many prefabricated houses put up after the earthquake had been washed away.

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