Torrential rain and strong winds caused by Typhoon Maysak left at least 17 people dead in southern and central China, as the region braced for more extreme weather in the coming days.
Flooding in the southern Chinese city of Nanning, the capital of Guangxi Province, killed at least six people and forced nearly 130,000 to evacuate. Eleven people are still missing. Heavy rain fell from Saturday morning to Monday evening, overwhelming rivers and reservoirs.
In Hubei Province, severe storms and tornadoes killed 11 people on Monday.
China is experiencing intense weather events more frequently, a phenomenon that Chinese officials have linked to the effects of global warming. In addition, China’s Ministry of Emergency Management said last month that this year’s El Niño, a recurring weather pattern, may cause more extreme weather in the country this summer.
Previous extreme events, including flooding that killed 31 residents of a nursing home in Beijing last year, have raised questions about the country’s emergency preparedness. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, on Tuesday ordered the authorities to “make every effort” in rescue and relief operations, treating the injured and resettling residents forced to leave their homes.
Another disaster on Tuesday was apparently not related to the storm. In Gansu province, a landslide in Nanhe Township killed 21 people who were buried in the soil, according to a news conference given by local officials on Wednesday. Another 12 were rescued and were being treated for their injuries. Local officials told Red Star News, a state-run news outlet, that it had not been raining and the cause of the landslide was still being investigated. Most of the people caught in the landslide were forestry workers from nearby villages who had been hired to clear trees and debris.
Typhoon Maysak made landfall in the southern island province of Hainan on Friday, prompting officials to stop trains and ferries and close schools. On Saturday it swept into northern Vietnam, which borders Guangxi, then headed north.
Nanning’s deputy mayor said that the breach of two reservoirs in Hengzhou, a prefecture of Nanning, had caused “severe loss of life and property” for residents. Footage of one of those reservoirs, the Liulan reservoir, showed brown floodwater rushing past a broken wall and directly toward residents’ homes.
Other videos showed inundated roads, farmland and buildings, including a school. In Guigang, another city in Guangxi, a wide road and the cars along it were submerged by floodwaters that flowed in torrents downhill into a construction site.
In Hubei Province, where 11 people died, tornadoes, severe storms and winds of up to 90 miles per hour were recorded, according to the province’s Emergency Management Department, which said that one person was still missing.China’s National Meteorological Center said on Tuesday that the typhoon had weakened, but more than 10 inches of rain were still expected through Wednesday in parts of Guangxi as well as in the provinces of Jiangsu and Shandong in the east and Liaoning in the north. Weather officials also said there was a possibility of tornadoes in parts of Anhui Province as well as in Jiangsu and Shandong.
A Category 5 super typhoon, named Typhoon Bavi, lashed Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands with powerful winds and heavy rain on Monday and is moving toward southeastern China. It is expected to pass near Taiwan on Friday and make landfall near the border of Zhejiang and Fujian provinces on Saturday, according to China’s National Meteorological Center.