text: "Pay special attention to preventing diseases which can be transmitted by humans and animals," the ministry said in a statement on its Web site (www.agri.gov.cn).
  In a sign of the urgency involved, an Anhui government watchdog sacked the village party chief of Zhenxing, in Yingshang county, for "not directing work at the flood front".
  "Failing your responsibility during floods is like touching a high-voltage electric wire," the China Daily quoted a county discipline official as saying.
  Further south, officials in Hunan province were battling to contain a plague of more than 2 billion rats fleeing the rising waters of Dongting Lake.
  Scientists blamed China’s massive Three Gorges Dam project and climate change for the rodents, whose flight to dry land has seen them ruin cropland in some 22 counties surrounding the lake.