Latest news with #rescuePersonnel
Sky News
26-06-2025
- Climate
- Sky News
Six killed in China floods as tropical storm threatens further devastation
At least six people have died after floods overwhelmed China's Guizhou province. The flooding has spread to other southwestern parts of the country, submerging towns and villages, ahead of a tropical depression. Parts of neighbouring Guangxi province are half-submerged, with the township of Meilin worst hit, state media reported on Thursday. Floodwaters peaked at more than 4 metres (13ft) above what was considered safe. Rongjiang and Congjiang in Guizhou province have already seen flooding, but now the wider region is on alert for potential road collapses, landslides and hydro-dam overflows. On Tuesday, at least six people died when Rongjiang - a city of around 300,000 residents where three rivers meet - was hit by a flood on a scale that Chinese meteorologists said could only happen once in 50 years. At one point, the flow rate in the River Liu was more than 80 times the average. Displaced residents were forced to stay at local hotels, which were also hosting rescue personnel and reconstruction workers, according to Reuters. As deluge-hit areas began to remove silt left behind by the flooding and restore power, water and phone lines - a tropical depression was expected to strike Guangxi on Thursday night. The storm risks a new round of flooding. The tropical depression made landfall on China's island province of Hainan early on Thursday, and later again in Guangdong on the mainland. It brought further rain to a region still suffering after Typhoon Wutip two weeks ago. Extreme storms and severe flooding, which meteorologists link to climate change, increasingly pose major challenges for Chinese officials. The storms threaten to overwhelm ageing flood defences, displace millions of people and cause billions of dollars in economic losses. " Climate change is making extreme weather more frequent and unpredictable," said Chen Xiaoguang, a professor at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, in Sichuan province.
Free Malaysia Today
24-06-2025
- Climate
- Free Malaysia Today
Thousands evacuated as severe flooding hits southern China
Even as Typhoon Wutip's severity subsided, it continued bringing heavy rain to southern China and the eastern Zhejiang province. (EPA Images pic) BEIJING : Nearly 70,000 people in southern China have been evacuated after heavy flooding caused by Typhoon Wutip, Chinese state media reported Wednesday. Vast areas of Zhaoqing city in Guangdong province were submerged, with floodwaters inundating shopfronts and covering roads, footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed. Rescuers pushed stranded cars out of the water and used dinghies to transport residents to safety. Other images showed rescuers wading through water while carrying stranded people on their backs. The flooding had affected 183,000 residents in Zhaoqing's Huaiji county, with the city mobilising more than 10,000 rescue personnel, state media outlet Xinhua reported. The flooding affected much of Guangdong province and the neighbouring Guangxi region. Footage from CCTV filmed on Tuesday showed rescuers in Guangxi dragging a rubber boat crammed with people through knee-deep water as heavy rain continued to fall. Typhoon Wutip, China's first typhoon of the year, made landfall on the island province of Hainan last Friday, before moving to Guangdong on Saturday. It brought winds gusting up to 128km/h before weakening to a severe tropical storm at the weekend. Even as its severity subsided, the storm has continued to bring heavy rain to southern China and Zhejiang province in the east, where authorities issued an emergency response notice for flooding risks. Rainfall in some areas had surpassed 100 millimetres, according to the China Meteorological Administration. Authorities in Vietnam said on Monday that seven people had died in the country after heavy rains and flooding caused by Wutip. China has endured spates of extreme weather events from searing heat and drought to downpours and floods for several summers running. The country is the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter but also a renewable energy powerhouse, seeking to cut carbon dioxide emissions to net zero by 2060. Torrential rains last August, triggered by Typhoon Gaemi, which moved from the Philippines and Taiwan to make landfall in eastern China, killed at least 30 people and left dozens missing.
