Heavy Rains Devastate Hunan Province, Claiming 7 Lives

AFP/ Xinhua

Beijing: Heavy rain and flooding hit central China’s Hunan province, taking seven lives and three going missing, state media reported Tuesday.

The rain damaged nearly 900 homes and caused 1,345 road collapses. Around 5,400 rescuers have been dispatched to help those affected.

Three people missing in Hunan’s Yongxing county since last Wednesday have been confirmed dead after a landslide. Four more were killed and three remain missing in Zixing, where more than 11,000 people were evacuated after the city experienced record rainfall, with some areas receiving 645 mm (25 inches) in just 24 hours, state news agency reported on Tuesday.

China is enduring a summer of extreme weather, with heavy rains battering swathes of the country and many regions experiencing sweltering heat waves.

The downpours have been caused by the remnants of Typhoon Gaemi, which made landfall in eastern China on Thursday, with Hunan particularly hard hit. On Sunday, a landslide destroyed a guesthouse and killed 15 people, while elsewhere in the province, nearly 4,000 residents were evacuated after a dam breach.

China’s National Meteorological Centre issued an orange alert on Monday, the second-highest level, for rainstorms across much of the south, southwest, and centre of the country, as well as the capital Beijing, Hebei province, and Tianjin in the north.