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China is hit by extreme weather conditions including heat, landslides, and floods

On Wednesday, torrential rains were sweeping across large areas of China as Tropical Storm Danas dunked coastal tech hubs. Monsoonal rains in the interior unleashed flash floods and deadly landslides over an 1,400 km (870 mile) arc.

A subtropical system of high pressure has been saturating the north-east coast and the central provinces in the $19 trillion US economy since last week. This is straining power grids, and parching crops.

Extreme weather is a growing threat to the world's second largest economy, and meteorologists attribute it to climate change. The impact of extreme weather threatens to wipe out billions in commercial activity and deaths each year as old flood defences are overwhelmed. Infrastructure gaps, such as the lack of air conditioning, are also exposed.

Chinese weather authorities warned residents to stay inside as Storm Danas, which had been downgraded from a Typhoon following the death of two people in Taiwan, began dumping water that it had collected over the South China Sea (or Taiwan Strait) on the coast provinces Zhejiang or Fujian.

China's State Broadcasting said that Danas could bring up to 300 millimetres of rain (30 centimetres in some areas), closing schools and putting officials on high alert along the rivers feeding important ports in Fuzhou and Xiamen.

On Flood Alert

The Danas residual vortex, and the large amount of water that it carries, could still cause havoc in south China, where rapid urbanisation sealed vast tracts of land under impermeable cement.

This risk was realized 1,500 km away, in Yibin in the southwest Sichuan Province, where more than 6,000 people had to be evacuated after 14 hours rain. CCTV, the state broadcaster, showed firefighters rescuing residents from rising water in lower floors of apartment blocks.

CCTV reported that heavy rains in Zhaotong (about a 3-hour drive away from Yibin) forced the evacuation of more than 7,000 residents. Five people went missing. In one county, 227.8mm of rain fell in 24 hours. This is the highest amount recorded since 1958.

Over 300 people were forced to relocate after a flash flooding near the foothills the Himalayas, in China's Tibet. The flood was caused by the Gyirong river bursting its bank.

Authorities in Shijiazhuang, in Hebei Province, activated emergency flood protocol after districts in the city received more than 100 mm of rain overnight.

HEATWAVES

On Wednesday, the subtropical system, which straddles the monsoonal cloud bands in China's interior with the Danas rain bands, continued to hover over central China, the eastern seaboard from Shanghai to Beijing, and brought near-record temperatures to the megacities of Shanghai Wuhan and Changsha.

After reports of heatstroke deaths in the last week, people were advised to stay hydrated and avoid going out during the hottest part of the day.

China does not keep an official record of deaths due to heat, but domestic media sometimes report on fatalities by citing local authorities.

The country experienced a 79 day heatwave in 2022 from mid-June until late August - the worst since 1961. In 2023, a study published in The Lancet reported that over 50,000 deaths were caused by heat that year. (Reporting and editing by Saad sayeed and Bernadettebaum; Reporting and Editing by Joe Cash & Ethan Wang)

(source: Reuters)