Cleanup Begins As Death Toll From China Floods Rises To 39

The death toll from devastating floods in southern China’s Guangxi region rose to 39 on Thursday, with nine people still missing, state media reported, as residents went about cleaning up.

Extreme weather has wreaked havoc on southern and central China this week, bringing torrential rain and severe flooding to Guangxi, with a typhoon heading towards eastern provinces this weekend.

Twenty-six deaths were linked to a dam breach at Liulan Reservoir, with seven still missing there, state news agency Xinhua reported.

On Thursday AFP reporters saw scores of lorries and rescue vehicles passing through a police checkpoint to drive into Liulan village.

Liulan was not the only reservoir that burst, local residents told AFP Thursday, saying another smaller one near the town of Gantang had also collapsed.

A man who gave his surname as Huang said they initially had not realised the severity of the situation, as “never in history had it ever been this bad”.

“We never received any warning. If we had received a warning, our losses would have been much less,” he added.

In Gantang, furniture and personal belongings were piled up in the streets as dozens of people swept muddy water from their houses.

A group of men sitting on wooden chairs outside reflected on how high the deluge had reached.

“This is the first time the water has reached the second floor,” said Bi Yunchun, 52, who had injured his foot in the flood water.

Natural disasters are common across China, particularly in the summer when some regions experience intense rainfall while others bake in scorching heat.

But scientists warn the intensity and frequency of global extreme weather events will increase as the planet continues to heat up because of fossil fuel emissions.

Cleanup Continues

On Wednesday when AFP visited Liulan, floodwaters had receded, but the streets and houses were swamped with thick mud.

Residents were cleaning up their devastated homes, with some of them using excavators to scoop up their damaged household items, AFP correspondents saw.

Water from the reservoir was still rushing through the river as a rescue team sent large drones carrying food and supplies to people trapped on the other side.

Six hundred residents from the village of Dutian, located next to the reservoir, were safely sheltering but were cut off from the rest of the area, state broadcaster CCTV said Thursday.

Houses in Dutian were directly hit by the flood surge, with some reduced to their foundations.

Many residents had been able to evacuate in time following an alert issued by the authorities, according to CCTV.

China’s defence ministry said it had deployed over 2,400 personnel, assisted by over 5,500 militia members.

Animals At Large

The flood chaos in Guangxi has not been limited to humans.

The region’s Guigang Zoo asked the public for help on Wednesday to find at least 100 animals that had escaped after their enclosures were damaged, including alpacas, miniature pigs and zebras.

Earlier this week, the head of a local village committee told Chinese media that around 800 to 900 snakes escaped after a breeding farm was washed away in Hengzhou city.

Just as residents were beginning to clean up the flood damage, Typhoon Bavi bore down on eastern China, threatening more rain.

Beijing on Thursday issued an orange rainstorm warning, suggesting that schools suspend classes and that people work from home if possible.

Bavi, which was downgraded from a super typhoon, is expected to make landfall or bypass Taiwan on Saturday before hitting the coast of China’s Fujian and Zhejiang provinces that evening, state media reported.

“After landfall, it will continue to move northwest and gradually weaken,” state broadcaster CCTV reported, citing the National Meteorological Center.

Bavi has a diameter of over 1,000 kilometres (620 miles), it added, and will bring “heavy to torrential rain over the next three days” in north and northeastern China.