The floods result in over 1,300 deaths and some 10 million homeless people. At one stage 20 percent of the croplands of China are estimated to be under water. Rainfall from June to mid-July reaches amounts more than half the average annual rainfall. Health authorities express concern at the rapid spread of water-borne dysentery, typhoid, hepatitis and malaria as two million homeless people camp in unsanitary roadside camps. More than half the summer wheat crop in east- central China is destroyed.
Chinese scientists blame the early arrival of the floods on global warming.
China, the largest agricultural country in the world, has arguably the largest agricultural challenges in the world.