UNHCR will contribute financially to this structure until the end of 2006. In July last year, Chiayi was hit by a strong quake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale which left five people dead and 26 injured. A bilateral donation earmarked to food transport and operational expenditures has been vital to be able to assist the children affected by recurrent floods. However, shifting weather patterns indicate that the Northwestern Province will soon receive rain. Light showers may bring additional relief during the next week, as the majority of maize plantings should be completed. 3 airports in the province were forced to close down temporarily and more than 500 flights were cancelled as fierce winds disrupted public transportation. Weathermen forecast another heavy rainstorm would hit northern parts of the province in the next few days. The same goes for the physical protection of communities through dykes, levees and preserved coastal and wetland vegetation. A second wave of larger swarms began arriving in late September and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said they had begun breeding on the archipelago of arid volcanic islands. Official media reported today(July 16) that the latest death toll in the floods in Qinghai where China's Yangtze River and Yellow River have their sources, torrential rainfall have killed at least 27 people, much higher than the figure of 17 people reported by our partner earlier this month. An estimated 2.5 million people have been affected by the flooding which followed four days of drenching cyclonic rains leaving 296 people dead, 195 missing and over 377,000 people displaced. BEIJING, Sep 24, 2008 (Xinhua via COMTEX News Network) -- Typhoon Hagupit has downgraded to severe tropical storm at 2 p.m. Wednesday in coastal areas of South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, according to the National Meteorological Center. Medicines and treatment for chronic diseases such as diabetes, epilepsy, cardiovascular diseases and cancer are hardly available, which especially affects the elderly population with a higher proportion of chronic diseases, but also children suffering from diseases such as epilepsy, cancer or heart disease. Scattered rains and thundershowers were also expected on Tuesday. The formation of this depression and the consequent organisation of monsoon trough led to rapid advancement over the northern and northwestern parts of the country and covered the entire country by 30 June. Federation delegates who visited the scene of the disaster reported a huge crater at the centre of the blast, and said the nearest surviving buildings had been scorched as though a fireball had swept through them. Since records began in that part of the world in 1877, Sidr obtained the title of the second strongest cyclone to make landfall in Bangladesh," Rob Gutro and Ed Olsen, weather analysts with the US-based Goddard Space Flight Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said on the NASA website.