Torrential rainfalls have led to the disappearance of eleven persons with thousands of people evacuated in Southern China, the state media reported on Monday.
The intense rainfall, affecting the Guangdong province, has swelled rivers and heightened fears of what could be a century’s worst flooding scenario.
“A total of 11 people are missing after continuous heavy rainfall hit many parts of Guangdong in recent days,” reported Xinhua, citing the local emergency management department.
In response to the escalating flood risk, authorities have moved more than 53,000 people to safer locations throughout the province.
The northern city of Qingyuan, located along the Bei River—a tributary of the Pearl River Delta—saw the largest number of evacuations, with over 45,000 residents moved.
According to reports from Sunday, the area is one of the hardest hit, with state broadcast station CCTV, showing images of waterfront homes decimated by landslides and residents seeking refuge in a drenched public sports court.
The National Meteorological Centre has projected that heavy rain will persist into Monday, accompanied by “thunderstorms and strong winds in Guangdong’s coastal waters,” impacting major cities like Hong Kong and Shenzhen.
Neighboring provinces such as Fujian, Guizhou, and Guangxi are also bracing for “short-term heavy rainfall.
“It is expected that the main impact period of strong convection will last from daytime until night,” the Meteorological Centre stated, emphasising the ongoing severity of the situation.
Guangdong, China’s densely populated manufacturing hub, is home to approximately 127 million people and frequently faces the challenge of extreme weather.
Recent years have seen an increase in such occurrences across China, with severe floods, prolonged droughts, and record heatwaves becoming more common.
Climate experts attribute the intensification of these extreme weather events to climate change, driven by human-emitted greenhouse gases.
China, as the world’s largest emitter, faces significant impacts from these shifts in climate patterns.
Flood warnings continue, with CCTC reporting that water levels in some tributaries of the Pearl River could reach as high as 5.8 meters (19 feet) above the warning limit by Monday morning.
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