China places 15 provinces on emergency alert as deadly floods make their way north
- Second-highest rainstorm emergency alert issued as China enters peak rainy season lasting well into August
On Sunday, four people were killed when their car was swept into a river by flood currents in the city of Suizhou in Hubei, according to the local fire department.
Suizhou had issued a red rainstorm alert, the most severe level on a four-tier warning system, and recorded up to 150mm (nearly 6 inches) of rain on the day, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The city of Xiangyang, also in Hubei, issued as many as seven red rainstorm warnings on Sunday, with water levels of 268 reservoirs breaching the upper limit, local authorities said.
02:02
China’s Yangtze River floods for first time in 2024, hits some areas hardest in 25 years
The China Meteorological Administration on Tuesday activated rainstorm emergency response Level 2, the second-highest alert in a four-tier system, for provinces including Henan, Shandong in the east and Sichuan in the southwest.
The Chinese term for the month-long peak flood season is qi xia ba shang, meaning late July and early August.
With the main rain belt shifting northwards, regions including the Sichuan basin and the “Huanghuai area” between the Yellow and Huai rivers would see persistent and extreme rainfall, bringing risks of flooding, “mountain torrents”, and urban waterlogging, the meeting was told.
Meanwhile, large areas of Henan, a major grain-producing province hit by drought between April and June, were reeling under floods brought by an “extremely heavy downpour” on Tuesday.
Nine weather stations in Henan recorded the highest rainfall rates nationwide in the 24 hours to midday on Tuesday, according to the National Meteorological Centre.
CCTV said Sheqi county topped the list with over 600mm of rain.
02:26
Riverbeds crack as Chinese farmers struggle through intense heatwave
Rainfall is categorised into three levels in China, with 250mm or more classified as a heavy downpour.
Floods in the Hai River basin may affect seven provincial-level areas, including the capital Beijing, the Ministry of Water Resources has forecast.
It also warned that any river basin could be at risk of extreme flooding because of climate change.
“The suddenness, extremity, and abnormality of heavy rainfall, floods and droughts have become increasingly apparent,” Yao Wenguang, director of the ministry’s Department of Flood and Drought Disaster Prevention, said on Sunday.
China has seen record floods and loss of life during the peak rainy season in recent years.
Nearly 400 people died when Henan was hit by floods in the summer of 2021, with the maximum daily rainfall almost matching the average annual rainfall.
Last year, Beijing saw the heaviest rain in more than a century amid floods in the Hai River basin.
