- China’s Guangdong province has been hit by floods since Thursday
- The region is home to more than 127 million people.
- So far, six have been injured by the biblical floods
Landslides in southern China injured at least six people and trapped others, state media reported Sunday, as a region with nearly 127 million people braced for severe flooding “seen about once a year.” century”.
Torrential rains in large areas of Guangdong province since Thursday have overflowed rivers in the Pearl River Delta and caused flooding in mountainous areas.
State broadcaster CCTV said on Sunday that the rains had caused landslides that affected six villages in the northern Guangdong city of Jiangwan, “causing people to become trapped.”
Photographs released by CCTV showed beachfront homes destroyed by a wall of brown mud and people in fluorescent-coloured ponchos sheltering on a sodden public sports pitch.
No deaths were immediately reported and the total number of people trapped was not specified.
Torrential rains in parts of Guangdong province since Thursday have overflowed rivers in the Pearl River Delta and caused flooding in mountainous areas.
State broadcaster CCTV said on Sunday that the rains had caused landslides that affected six villages in the northern Guangdong city of Jiangwan.
Photographs released by CCTV showed beachfront homes destroyed by a wall of brown mud and people in fluorescent-coloured ponchos sheltering on a sodden public sports pitch.
But CCTV said six people who were “trapped and injured” in the landslides had been airlifted to the nearby town of Shaoguan.
Emergency workers were rushing to restore communications in the affected area “as soon as possible”, CCTV said.
He added that more than 80 rescuers were working “day and night” to help people in the disaster area.
The Pearl River Delta is the manufacturing heart of China and one of the most densely populated regions in the country; About 127 million people live in Guangdong alone.
Aerial CCTV footage on Sunday showed murky water reaching close to street level in some towns, leaving riverside promenades and pavilions flooded and a pagoda protruding from the deluge.
Authorities have launched a level two emergency response in the Pearl River Delta, the second highest in a four-tier system.
Emergency workers were racing to restore communications in the affected area “as soon as possible”, CCTV said.
The national meteorological bureau imposed weather alerts across central Guangdong and warned of major storms in coastal areas through Sunday night and into Monday.
Citing the provincial hydrology office, CCTV said three monitored locations in the Bei River basin “would experience flooding approximately once a century… due to the impact of heavy rainfall.”
According to CCTV, flooding of up to 19 feet above the warning limit would affect the areas from early Monday morning.
Several other monitored tributaries in the basin would suffer the type of flooding seen once every 50 years, he said.
There were no initial reports of mass evacuations.
Strong storms were also forecast in parts of neighboring Jiangxi and Fujian provinces on Sunday night.
China is no stranger to extreme weather conditions, but in recent years the country has been hit by severe floods, devastating droughts and record heat.
Climate change driven by human-emitted greenhouse gases is making extreme weather events more frequent and intense, and China is the world’s largest emitter.