BEIJING, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- A total of 881 people in China died and 98 others went missing in natural disasters in 2017, including floods, typhoons, droughts and earthquakes, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said Thursday.
Natural disasters affected 140 million people in total during the year, causing 5.25 million to be relocated during emergencies and leaving 1.7 million in need of emergency relief, the ministry announced on its website, citing figures from joint analyses with several other departments.
Altogether 18.5 million hectares of crops were affected by the disasters and 1.8 million hectares failed, imposing direct economic losses of 302 billion yuan (about 48 billion U.S. dollars), according to the ministry.
Around 153,000 houses were toppled in the disasters and 312,000 were seriously damaged, the ministry said.
The briefing also said the natural disasters in 2017 were notably less severe than the average for the past five years, with the crop area affected and direct economic losses dropping over 20 percent.
In 2017, the number of houses toppled or damaged in natural disasters was down more than 60 percent compared to the average from the past five years, and the number of people affected by, killed, or relocated due to disasters was more than 40 percent lower, the ministry said.
