ZHOUQU, China (AP) – China says the death toll has jumped to 702 people, with more than 1,000 still missing in a landslide disaster in Gansu province.

Local government officials released the new death toll – up from 337 on Monday – at a news conference Tuesday. The landslides hit a remote Gansu town on Sunday in the deadliest incident so far in the country’s worst flooding in a decade.

China is one of three Asian countries to be hit by serious flooding. In Pakistan, thousands fled a central city as authorities warned swollen rivers could soon submerge the area, adding to the worst floods in the nation’s 63-year history.

And rescuers in Indian-controlled Kashmir recovered more bodies, with the death toll rising to 165 from flash floods there.
(COPYRIGHT 2010 BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)