Rongjiang, Guizhou is underwater — floodwaters surged past 837 feet, wiping out neighborhoods, roads: China
CHINA HIT BY THE WORST FLOOD IN RECORDED HISTORY
Rongjiang, Guizhou is underwater — floodwaters surged past 837 feet, wiping out neighborhoods, roads, and forcing over 80,000 evacuations.
They’re calling it a “once-in-50-year flood” — but this is bigger. Guangxi, Hunan, and more provinces are now sinking.
The Guangxi township of Meilin was the worst-hit, state media reported on Thursday, with floodwaters at their peak more than 4 metres (13 feet) above what was considered safe.
Even as dangerous surface run-off began to recede, southwestern China – from Guizhou and Guangxi to Chongqing, Yunnan and Sichuan – remained on alert for secondary disasters such as road collapses, landslides and hydro-dam overflows.
“Rural areas face significant challenges due to limited infrastructure and resources,” said Chen Xiaoguang, professor at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu.
“Strengthening these systems in rural counties will be key to reducing the long-term impact of increasingly severe weather.”
Urban areas typically have stronger capacity to respond to floods, he said, but not all cities are equally equipped. Rongjiang for instance is a county-level area where resources are more limited.
On Tuesday, the Guizhou city of Rongjiang, located at the confluence of three rivers, was hit by a flood on a scale that Chinese meteorologists said could only happen once in 50 years, and at a speed that shocked its 300,000 residents.
