The provincial flood control and drought relief bureau reported Monday that 536 000 residents in eastern China’s Jiangxi province have been affected by continued torrential rains.
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Heavy rains lashed the province from Friday through Sunday. As a result of the flooding, 16 000 people across Jiangxi have been forced to evacuate.
As weather conditions improve, the bureau decided to end the level IV emergency response for flood control as of 8 p.m. today. China has a four-level emergency response system for flood control, with level I being the most severe.
The affected cities in Jiangxi include Fuzhou, Ji’an, Yichun and Xinyu, where crops on 67,700 hectares were damaged. According to authorities, direct economic losses are estimated at about 670 million yuan (about $96.9 million).
Affected by heavy rains from Friday, water levels of 21 rivers in east China’s Jiangxi and Fujian provinces have risen above the alert marks, the Ministry of Water Resources said on Sunday. pic.twitter.com/07JksIOiXw
— Beijing Evening News (@BeijingEvening)
May 8, 2023
Between Friday and Sunday, 406 millimeters of rainfall were recorded in Fuzhou (Jiangxi) and 313 mm in Nanping (Fujian province): the southern Chinese provinces among the hardest hit.
According to the Ministry of Water Resources, average rainfall across the country this year has increased by 6 percent compared to the same period last year.
The National Meteorological Center forecast heavy rainfall for Monday in most areas south of the Yangtze River. It added that monthly rainfall was expected to approach or exceed the peak recorded in May.