Weather-related disasters left 1,049 dead or missing in 2011

Weather-related disasters in 2011 left 1,049 people dead or missing and resulted in direct economic losses of over 303 billion yuan (about 48 billion U.S. dollars), according to a report released Friday by the China Meteorological Administration (CMA). The death toll was the lowest since 1990, but the economic losses were comparatively high, the report said. China saw a relatively warm and dry year with frequent outbreaks of extremely high temperatures in 2011, said the CMA. The number of days posting high temperatures during the year ranked second only to that in 2010 among the last 50 years, the report said. China defines temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius as high. The whole-year temperature across the country averaged 9.3 Celsius degrees, 0.5 degrees above average, the report said. During the May-September period, a total of 48 monitoring stations had logged record-breaking high temperatures, mainly in the provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan and Hubei. Among them, eight had registered temperatures at or above 43 degrees Celsius, according to the report. Meanwhile, China received 556.8 millimeters of precipitation in 2011, 9.1 percent below average, marking the lowest level in six decades.