China’s north and west on alert after sweeping rains trigger deadly floods

[BEIJING] China’s north and west braced for flash floods and landslides on Thursday as annual ‘Plum Rains’ left a trail of destruction and prompted the mobilisation of thousands of rescue workers to pull people from floodwaters.

Red alerts were issued tracing the rains as they moved from the southwestern province of Sichuan through the northwestern province of Gansu, and up to the northeastern province of Liaoning.

State media said over 1,000 rescue workers were dispatched to the town of Taiping in central China’s Henan province on Wednesday, after torrential rains caused a nearby river to burst its banks, killing five people in a flash flood and leaving three others missing.

By Thursday morning, some trains into the capital Beijing had been suspended, while one of the capital city’s airports saw flight delays and cancellations late on Wednesday and into the early hours.

Extreme rainfall and severe flooding, which meteorologists link to climate change, increasingly pose major challenges for policymakers as they threaten to overwhelm ageing flood defences, displace millions and wreak havoc on China’s US$2.8 trillion agricultural sector.

Economic losses from natural disasters exceeded US$10 billion last July, when the ‘Plum Rains’ – named for their timing coinciding with plums ripening along China’s Yangtze River during the East Asia monsoon – typically reach their peak.

In China’s southwestern province of Guangxi, several buildings slid down hillsides over the last two days after their foundations gave way in waterlogged soil, local media reported.

In contrast, the national meteorological centre forecast scorching heat along the country’s eastern seaboard. REUTERS