China: 15 provinces in a state of alarm due to devastating floods
China has put 15 provinces on high alert due to the increased risk of severe flooding with the arrival of the rainy season. The deadly downpours that ravaged the south have moved north, hitting previously drought-plagued central Henan province and northern Hubei province.
Four people died when their car was swept away by flood currents in Hubei's Suizhou city on Sunday, according to local firefighters. Suizhou had issued a red warning for thunderstorms, the most severe level of a four-level warning system, recording up to 150mm of rain in one day, state broadcaster CCTV said. The city of Xiangyang in Hubei also issued seven red storm warnings on Sunday, with water levels in 268 reservoirs exceeding the maximum limit, according to local authorities.
China's Yangtze River flooded for the first time in 2024 , hitting some areas the hardest in 25 years. The China Meteorological Administration has activated storm emergency response level 2, the second highest alert level, for Henan, Shandong and Sichuan provinces.
The Ministry of Emergency Management, state flood control and relief agencies and nearly half of China's provincial authorities held a meeting on Sunday, urging officials to prepare for worst-case scenarios, the news agency reported state-run Xinhua. T he Chinese term for the peak flood season month is “qi xia ba shang,” which means late July and early August.
As rain shifts northward, regions such as the Sichuan Basin and the “Huanghuai area” between the Yellow and Huai rivers will see persistent and extreme rainfall, with risks of flooding, “mountain torrents” and urban waterlogging. Meanwhile, large areas of Henan, a major grain-producing province hit by drought between April and June, were inundated 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 Center. Sheqi County tops the list with more than 600mm of rainfall, CCTV reported.
The famous Three Gorges Dam also had to be opened to prevent the water levels from rising too high upstream. A strong contrast with what happened last year, when the dam's electricity production was put in crisis by the lack of water resources.
A drone view shows roads submerged in floodwaters following heavy rainfall, in Qingyuan, Guangdong province, China April 22, 2024. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang
Precipitation in China is classified into three levels, with 250 mm or more considered heavy downpours. Flooding in the Hai River basin could affect seven provincial-level areas, including the capital Beijing, the Ministry of Water Resources has predicted. It also warned that any river basin could be at risk of extreme flooding due to climate change. “The suddenness, extremeness and abnormality of heavy rains, floods and droughts have become increasingly obvious,” said Yao Wenguang, director of the Ministry's Flood and Drought Prevention Department.
In recent years, China has seen record flooding and loss of life during the rainy season. Nearly 400 people died when Henan was hit by floods in the summer of 2021, with maximum daily rainfall almost matching the average annual rainfall. Last year, Beijing recorded the heaviest rainfall in over a century, which then caused heavy flooding in the Hai River basin.
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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/cina-15-province-in-stato-dallarme-per-le-alluvioni-devastanti/ on Tue, 16 Jul 2024 12:49:03 +0000.