15 June 2022

Six dead in China as rain triggers landslides and house collapse

15 June 2022

Heavy rain in China has claimed six lives this week and forced the evacuation of some 200,000 people.

Five people died in south-east China, according to state media reports.

A house collapse killed three in the Fujian province on Tuesday, and two died on Monday in a landslide caused by torrential rain in the neighbouring Jiangxi province.

One person died and three are missing in northern China after a vehicle fell into the water in mountain flooding from heavy rain in the Inner Mongolia region.

China regularly experiences seasonal rains and flooding during the summer, most frequently in central and southern areas.

An aerial view shows a flooded areas along the Rongjiang River after heavy rainfalls in the Rongshui Miao Autonomous County, southern China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (Huang Xiaobang/Xinhua/AP)

Video on state broadcaster CCTV showed large parts of cities flooded in muddy waters.

Rescue workers carried trapped people out of buildings on their backs in waist-deep water in Guangdong province, also in the south-east.

The rain ended on Wednesday in Jiangxi, but more precipitation is forecast for another week in Fujian, Jiangxi and Guangdong and the nearby Guangxi region.

The National Meteorological Center said residents should prepare for floods and landslides as the soil is already saturated in those areas.

More than 110,000 people have been relocated in Jiangxi province, along with more than 80,000 in Fujian, state media reports said.

Seventeen people died last week in rain-related disasters in Guangxi and in Hunan province in central China.

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