Guangdong hit as deadly floods sweep southern China

[Ray]

Guangdong hit as deadly floods sweep southern China

Flooding and landslides across nine southern Chinese provinces have killed more than 50 people and left 14 missing, officials say.

Guangdong was hardest hit, reporting 36 deaths after days of heavy rain, said the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Six people had died in Jiangxi, added the ministry.

And further bad weather is forecast for Guangdong later on Saturday, with warnings of heavy wind and rain causing more flooding in the next few days.

Teams of relief workers have been sent to oversee the recovery efforts in the hardest hit areas, officials said.

Heavy rainstorms in Guangdong reportedly caused widespread flooding in the province's mountainous areas and affected nine cities including the provincial capital, Guangzhou.

Nearly 900,000 people had been affected across the state, with floods destroying 2,675 houses, China's Xinhua News Agency reported.

BBC News - Guangdong hit as deadly floods sweep southern China

 

[Ray]

This happened earlier.

China floods: Millions affected by deadly downpours

The floods come after months of crop-destroying drought in the centre and north of the country

More than five million people are now reported to have been affected by deadly floods in eastern China.

Torrential rain was continuing, leaving large parts of Zhejiang and Hubei provinces under water, state-run news agency Xinhua said.

It said nearly 1,000 businesses were being disrupted and crops destroyed, pushing up food prices.

This month's flooding - the worst since 1955 - has already left about 170 people dead or missing, reports say.

The government has mobilised troops to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people.

China's disaster alert has been raised to the highest level, four.

Downpours earlier this week triggered landslides that buried houses and killed at least two people in Zhejiang and another two in Hubei.

The floods come after months of crop-destroying drought in the centre and north of the country.

Some areas along the Yangtze River have suffered their worst drought in half a century.

Despite the rain, officials have warned that the crop shortages and dislocation caused by drought will remain severe.

Analysts say crop shortages in China could affect prices around the world.

BBC News - China floods: Millions affected by deadly downpours

 

[Ray]

It is most unfortunate that China is being besotted with serial ecological disasters.

While one can blame it on indiscriminate industrialisation with little care for the ecology, but is it so?

 

[rockdog]

It is most unfortunate that China is being besotted with serial ecological disasters.

While one can blame it on indiscriminate industrialisation with little care for the ecology, but is it so?

Things is complicated. My hometown is downstream of Yangtze river, where the 3-Gergoes dam built in upstream.
Before this world biggest dam built, every year, during summer time the river is 4 meters higher than the city's road and government must sent 300,000 people to protect the city.

After the dam is finished, no more fear about the flood any more, and the Wuhan and downstream area has the GDP size almost same as whole India, so can we just simply say that:industrialisation with little care for the ecology?

Let me show you some images before and after:

River 4 meters higher than the street in 1998, how scary.

Now there is no more threat of flood, the river bank becomes world's longest park:

 

[Ray]

True, that is what I want to know.

Is it the effect of climate change caused by greenhouse gases or it for some other reason?

If one notices, there are many natural disasters hitting all around the world. While that is not something that one cannot expect, but things like massive flooding in Europe, which normally did not happen in the recent past, the massive devastation on the East Coast of US that is also out of the ordinary.