China floods: Thousands affected as heaviest rain in 60 years, landslides wreak havoc

As massive flash floods and landslides wreaked havoc during the heaviest rainfall witnessed in several decades in China, hundreds of thousands of residents had to be evacuated from their homes to safety. Rain unleashed heavy flooding in the southern and eastern regions of Beijing on Monday, including Jiangxi, Guangdong, and Guangxi. Many of the South Asian country’s 85 rivers overflowed above the warning levels in the midst of the heaviest rains in 60 years that battered the towns. 

177,600 from risk-prone areas relocated

Estimates reported by CNN suggest that as many as 177,600 people had to be relocated, close to 1,729 houses were levelled into ruins, large swathes of agricultural land, approximately 27.13 hectares of crop, were destroyed in the downpour, Guangdong's Department of Emergency Management said in a statement. 

Credit: Twitter/@chopin_edward

Swollen rivers spilled into towns and residential areas in the southwestern Guizhou province, sweeping cars, and homes, according to viral footage on the internet. Guangxi, Guangdong and Fujian received its heaviest rainfall since 1961, measuring a whopping 621 millimetres (24.4 inches). China’s state news agency Xinhua reported that China has received downpour in June that constitutes 90% of the countrywide average last year 2021. 

Regions of Guizhou, Jiangxi, Anhui, Zhejiang and Guangxi are expected to be pounded with heavy downpours throughout Tuesday. Flooding occurred along the Yangtze River and its tributaries due to nonstop torrential rains. Rains are also expected in the southern and southwestern parts of China, which is apparently dry desert terrain, according to Beijing’s National Climate Center. China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment last week blamed the climatic condition on the temperature shift globally and appealed to the world to tackle global warming by 2035. 

An estimated 1.1 million residents in China's southeastern province of Jiangxi have been severely impacted by the flash flood, rain, storm and destruction to their homes. By the start of June, as many as 32 people have already lost their lives due to torrential rain, and hectares of rice-producing agricultural land have also been destroyed. The Chinese government has declared a high alert in many parts of the country, particularly cautioning the residents near the low-lying Pearl River basin along the Guangdong and Guangxi region. Around 200,000 people in risk-prone areas have been evacuated.