Extreme flooding throughout late April is causing chaos and wreaking havoc for millions of people in southern China.
Cities throughout China’s Pearl River Delta were swamped with flood waters as record-breaking rains hit the nation in mid-April, according to Reuters. Reports suggest approximately 83,000 people have been evacuated thus far while 1.6 million are without electricity. Thousands of schools have been forced to close as natural disasters associated with heavy flooding continue to threaten millions.
At least four people were killed and 10 others remain missing at the time of writing on Monday, as flood waters reached the second story of buildings in some parts of the delta, according to Sky News.
Massive flood in China: over 83,000 people evacuated. Guangdong province where over 127 million people live is being flooded.
At least 1,6 million people are left without electricity, 1,000+ schools have been closed.
There are heavy rains and hurricanes in the region, that are… pic.twitter.com/9Cis58m4Fn
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 22, 2024
Rainfall levels across the region have broken previously set records, Sky added. The overall rainfall for April is two to three times higher than considered typical. (RELATED: Don’t Panic Guys, China’s Just Messing Around With Dark Matter. We’re Sure It’ll Be Fine (Not))
Thunderstorms, hurricanes and other forms of damaging weather and precipitation are expected to continue throughout the coming week. It’s believed the rainfall was caused by a subtropical high that brought moisture-laden air through the South China Sea and the Bay of Bengal, Reuters added.
🚨BREAKING: 1/2 OF A MILLION PEOPLE EVACUATED IN CHINA / HONG KONG DUE TO FLOODING
The evacuation of 82,000 people in Guangdong province near Hong Kong is part of a larger response to Typhoon Saola, which has triggered the evacuation of over 460,000 people across the region.… pic.twitter.com/tFAbXuiGn7
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 22, 2024
“My rice fields are fully flooded, my fields are gone,” local resident Huang Jingrong, 61, told Reuters. “I won’t be making any money this year, I will be making losses,” estimated to be around $13,800 (100,000 yuan). “What can we do? We won’t get reimbursed for our losses,” he added.
A cyclist peddles past flood waters near a river in Qingyuan City, in China’s southern Guangdong Province on April 21, 2024. Landslides in southern China injured at least six people and trapped others, state media reported on April 21, as the region braced for severe floods “seen around once a century”. (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)
This picture shows fallen trees atop a car following heavy rains in Qingyuan city, in China’s southern Guangdong province on April 22, 2024. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
The region is best known for being the “factory floor of the world” but attempts to protect it from annual flooding seem to be falling short in recent years, Reuters noted. In 2022, flooding in Guangdong forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate. Two people were also killed in Hong Kong during a flash flood in September 2023.
The deluge felt throughout southern China comes just days after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was hit with a year’s worth of rain in just 12 hours.