Local residents transport a car to a safe place after floods hit Huaibin county of Xinyang, central China's Henan Province July 12. Almost half a million people have been evacuated from the flood basin of China's Huai River, swollen to its highest level in over half a century, with their misery compounded by a plague of rats blamed on a scarcity of snakes and owls.

A local resident paddles on the floods while a pig sleeps aside.

(China Daily July 13, 2007)