BEIJING – Central and southern China were on high alert for more flash floods on June 20 as the annual East Asia monsoon gathered pace and extreme rainfall threatened disruption in the world’s second-largest economy.
The red alerts, the first for 2025, were issued late on June 19, covering areas in the provinces of Anhui, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou and Guangxi region, state news agency Xinhua reported, citing the water resources ministry and national weather forecaster China Meteorological Administration.
Extreme rainfall and severe flooding, which meteorologists link to climate change, increasingly pose major challenges for policymakers as they threaten to overwhelm ageing flood defences, displace millions, and wreak havoc on China’s US$2.8 trillion (S$3.6 trillion) agricultural sector.
China’s rainy season, which arrived earlier than usual in 2025 in early June, is usually followed by intense heat that scorches any crops that survive waterlogged soil, depletes reservoirs, and warps roads and other infrastructure.
Economic losses from natural disasters exceeded US$10 billion in July 2024, when the rainfall typically peaks.
Damage was triple that amount in 2020 when China endured one of its longest rainy seasons in decades, lashed by rain for more than 60 days, or about three weeks longer than usual.
On June 19, heavy rain in southern Hunan triggered the largest floods since 1998 in the upper and lower reaches of the Lishui River after its water levels breached the safety mark by more than two metres.
Videos uploaded to Douyin, as TikTok is known in China, show the river spilling onto main roads and carrying debris downstream.
In the hilly metropolis of south-western Chongqing, apartment blocks were submerged in muddy waters and some vehicles were swept away in flood waters gushing down streets, according to state broadcaster CCTV’s footage and images from June 19.
An image showed floodwaters almost reaching the top of power cable lines. Water and power supply were also disrupted in some areas, CCTV said.
Nearly 300 people were evacuated from towns and villages in Pengshui county, where cumulative daily rainfall had reached 304mm, and floods were made worse by precipitation from the mountains converging into the Ditang River, which had swollen by 19m, according to CCTV.
The water in several other rivers in Chongqing had also exceeded alert levels due to the extreme rainfall, Xinhua said.
On June 18, power supply was disrupted in the city of Zhaoqing in southern Guangdong Province as floodwaters rose more than five metres above warning levels, breaking historical records, local media reported. REUTERS
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