Chinese meteorological services warned on Monday that 11 provinces, or about half of the country’s land area, were expected to be affected by heavy rain in the coming days.
Authorities in central China’s Hunan province said on Sunday that more than 10,000 people had been evacuated from their homes and urgently moved to safety due to flooding.
In Hunan, some 70 houses collapsed, 2,283 were damaged, and agricultural fields were flooded. Losses so far have been estimated at 575 million yuan (72.8 million euros), the Xiang’xi Region Emergency Management Bureau said.
In the Zhenba region of the northern Shaanxi province, authorities reported that the worst flooding in 50 years has devastated roads and damaged houses. No deaths have been recorded so far.
The China Meteorological Agency said it believed a lack of rain could be contributing to the extreme heat, as Beijing, already a dry city, is experiencing less rainfall than normal this year.
The flooding in China follows an unusual heat wave, during which Beijing recorded 10 days in which the temperature exceeded 35 degrees Celsius, the China Climate Center reported, under the auspices of the Chinese meteorological agency.
The last time Beijing experienced a similar heat wave was in 1961, decades before most residents of the Chinese capital had access to air conditioning or even fans.
While temperatures in the capital have dropped to 33 degrees Celsius today at noon (05:00 GMT), forecasters have warned they are likely to rise again this week to 39.6 degrees Celsius in Beijing and other parts of China. .
In 2021, more than 300 people died in the central province of Henan, as torrential rains inundated the provincial capital of Zhengzhou on July 20, turning streets into rivers and covering part of a metro line.
The worst floods in China’s recent history occurred in 1998, when 4,150 people died, mostly along the Yangtze, the world’s third-longest river.
Source: TSF
