A local resident sails a makeshift raft as she delivers some belongings to her home at a flooded street near Bangbu at east China's Anhui Province July 13, 2007. Hundreds of thousands of villagers in east China were fleeing the worst flood on a major river in more than 50 years on Friday, facing shortages of medicine, fuel and food with more rain forecast, media said.

Children sail a boat in a flooded street near Bangbu in east China's Anhui Province July 12, 2007. 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. Most of the evacuees are villagers from the dirt-poor eastern province of Anhui with the rest from Henan to the northwest and Jiangsu to the east.

A local resident stands in a wooden barrel as he sails around his house in a flooded street near Bangbu in east China's Anhui Province July 13, 2007. Hundreds of thousands of villagers in east China were fleeing the worst flood on a major river in more than 50 years on Friday, facing shortages of medicine, fuel and food with more rain forecast, media said.

(China Daily July 14, 2007)