China Issues Highest-level Rainstorm Warning After Deadly Floods

Beijing, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Apr, 2024) More than 100,000 people have been evacuated due to heavy rain and fatal floods in southern China, with the government issuing its highest-level rainstorm warning for the affected area on Tuesday.

Torrential rains have lashed Guangdong in recent days, swelling rivers and raising fears of severe flooding that state media said could be of the sort only "seen around once a century".

On Tuesday, the megacity of Shenzhen was among the areas experiencing "heavy to very heavy downpours", the city's meteorological observatory said, adding the risk of flash floods was "very high".

It later downgraded its weather warning as the storms weakened, but urged residents to remain vigilant against disasters.

Images from Qingyuan -- a city in northern Guangdong that is part of the low-lying Pearl River Delta -- showed a building almost completely submerged in a flooded park next to a river.

Official media reported Sunday that more than 45,000 people had been evacuated from Qingyuan, which straddles the Bei River tributary.

State news agency Xinhua said 110,000 residents across Guangdong had been relocated since the downpours started over the weekend.

The floods have claimed the lives of four people so far and 10 are missing, according to state media.