Town hit by a year’s worth of rain as storms continue to lash China
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People take shelter from heavy rain in Beijing on July 12.
PHOTO: AFP
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BEIJING - A small town in China’s central Henan province was lashed by almost a year’s worth of rain in one day as the extreme storms that battered the south this summer shift to the central and northern provinces.
As at 8am on July 16, 606.7mm of rainfall had been logged in Dafengying over a 24-hour period, the most anywhere in China, according to national weather forecasters.
The average annual rainfall is 800mm in the area.
Dafengying lies within the city limits of Nanyang, which is renowned for its mild and temperate weather.
The authorities in Henan put in place the most severe flood control measures for the city on July 16.
Record rainfall pounded southern China from April to June, while in the north, dry weather parched fields and threatened crops. As the summer advanced, the seasonal rain belt swung north, drenching provinces that had grappled with drought-like conditions just a month ago.
The vast region where Henan, Shandong and Anhui provinces meet was set to see particularly heavy rainfall through late July 16, according to forecasts.
Early on July 16, Beijing temporarily shut numerous train lines in suburban areas around the Chinese capital after issuing an early warning for thunderstorms and flash floods as the country’s north braces itself for stormy weather.
Chinese authorities placed the northern region on high alert for heavy rain since late July 15, and agencies have taken measures to counter the impact of heavy rainfall that is moving northwards towards the Sichuan Basin and areas north of the Huai River, said state media Xinhua.
Provincial authorities in Henan announced the highest emergency response for flood control in the city of Nanyang on July 16 to contend with the severe flooding, local media reported. The city sits astride the Bai River, a tributary of the Han River.
In Henan, the weather observatory in the city of Shangqiu raised its warning for heavy rain to the highest level.
In China’s north-western province of Gansu, Kang county flagged a red alert for rain and warnings of mountain floods and urban flooding as towns were lashed by heavy downpours, with some areas hitting a cumulative precipitation of more than 100mm.
In the south, a resurgence of flood waters along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze, China’s longest river, pushed the areas of the river’s drainage basin into a critical period of flood control on July 16, Xinhua said.
The authorities have been monitoring and adjusting water discharge from the Three Gorges Dam, which sits on the Yangtze, to help reduce flood-control pressures in Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi and other provinces in the middle and lower reaches of the river.
In June, torrential rain, flash floods and landslides
