BEIJING, Aug 2 — Rescuers in China scrambled today to locate dozens of people still missing a week after the year’s most powerful typhoon roared into the southern province of Hunan, while emergency workers rushed to seal breached dykes on swollen rivers.
Even before Typhoon Gaemi hit last Thursday (July 25), China was roiled by months of extreme weather that pummelled southern provinces with record rain and parched northern regions with heat waves. Weather officials are warning of more harsh weather in August.
The city of Zixing took the brunt of the typhoon in Hunan, lashed by 673.9mm of rain over 24 hours or the equivalent of a quarter of its average annual rainfall, said local officials during a press conference today.
The most powerful typhoon to hit China this year, Gaemi has killed 30 residents of the city, with 35 missing.
“Typhoon Gaemi brought great damage to Zixing. It was a very serious natural disaster,” said provincial disaster prevention official Xiao Yingbin.
The power supply was knocked out in 149 villages and communications cut in 78, while 1,641 houses were destroyed and 1,345 sections of roads collapsed, one official said.
About 118,000 residents of Zixing, or a third of its population, have been affected, and about 13,800 hectares of crops were damaged.
China’s second-most senior official Premier Li Qiang urged yesterday during a visit to the city that rescuers must make every effort to find the missing, restore infrastructure, and guard against disasters like landslides.
Mountainous terrain and dense forests present challenges for the rescuers, officials said, as they have been forced to walk to the hardest-hit areas, cut off by road collapses.
Supplies had to be air-dropped in some places, said local emergency management official Cao Zhongsheng.
Economic impact
Across Hunan province, the rains have affected 1.15 million people, with direct economic losses of 6.13 billion yuan (RM3.81 billion).
Emergency workers rushed this week to seal a breached dyke on the Juanshui River, with two other dyke breaches reported on Sunday (July 28).
Extreme weather crimped China’s factory operations in July while high temperatures and floods hobbled the construction sector, official data showed this week, after last month’s contraction in manufacturing activity.
July was China’s hottest month in modern history, mirroring record-high temperatures elsewhere in the world fuelled by climate change.
Yesterday, National Climate Center deputy head Jia Xiaolong said that more harsh weather is in store for China in August, with many regions expected to get more rain than in corresponding periods of previous years. Up to three typhoons could hit China this month.
Drought might hit the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in central China, he added, calling for measures such as cloudseeding to ensure crops grow.
Visiting the central province of Henan this week, Vice Premier Liu Guozhong called for efforts to limit damage to farm output from torrential rain and floods and ensure a bumper autumn harvest.
Henan, known as China’s granary, grows about one-third of its wheat.
— Reuters
