Southern China suffers heaviest floods in more than 60 years

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 The heaviest rains in decades have caused floods and landslides in southern China, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate.


The southern region of China has recently experienced record heavy rains. According to the China Meteorological Administration, the average rainfall in Guangdong, Fujian and Guangxi provinces between early May and mid-June amounted to 621mm, the highest since 1961.

Pictures published by local media showed people in these areas having to move to temporary evacuation points set up at schools or stadiums.

In Guangxi province, urban areas were flooded with muddy floodwaters, and rescuers had to evacuate people in rubber boats. This is considered the heaviest flood since 2005 in Guangxi. Local hydrometeorological officials said that 28 rivers in Guangxi have all exceeded alarm levels, while the rain has not stopped.

Officials in Guangdong province on June 20 said that more than 200,000 people here had to be evacuated due to rains and floods, with material damage estimated at 1.7 billion yuan (more than 250 million USD). A total of more than 480,000 people in southern China had to be evacuated. The city of Shaoguan, Guangdong province, which was the hardest hit, had to issue a red alert for floods.

In Fujian province, since the beginning of this month, more than 220,000 people have also been evacuated due to floods.

Earlier this month, floods killed at least 21 people in Hubei province.
China has struggled to cope with extreme weather in recent years. Last year, a "once in a hundred years" flood in Ha Nam province, central this country, killed 398 people and caused more than 10 billion USD in material damage.

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