New Delhi: Nearly 25 people, including 12 metro commuters, have died in China’s worst rain in more than 1,000 years. According to officials, Zhengzhou recorded 617.1 mm of rainfall from Saturday to Tuesday, which is roughly the same as the city’s annual average rainfall (640.8 mm).
Multiple images and videos from China have flooded social media showing the country’s horrific situation in what looks nothing less than a scene from an apocalyptic movie as residents face flooding amid heavy rains in Zhengzhou, Henan province, China. floated through the water.
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As water levels in 53 rivers crossed historic highs during the summer last year, officials sounded the alarm, saying the Three Gorges Dam has seen the biggest flooding since the operation began in 2003. Flood situation is quite common in the country. A total of 1.24 million people were affected by the floods and more than 160,000 were evacuated, according to state-run media.
What are the reasons behind China’s deteriorating flood situation?
Weakening dam network: Beijing has a vast dam network to deal with annual floods, but the situation has worsened in recent years as hundreds of people lost their lives and thousands of homes were submerged.
It has relied on dams, dams and reservoirs to control the flow of water. About 30 billion cubic meters of floodwater were diverted last year by dams and reservoirs in the Yangtze, Asia’s longest river, in an effort to combat flooding in regions including Shanghai.
However, the country’s massive water management plans have failed to prevent all floods raising doubts about the durability of dams built decades ago.
On Tuesday, the military warned a damaged dam in Henan province could “collapse at any time” following record rain. Soldiers blew an opening in the dam to release the water and ran across the province to reinforce other embankments with bags of sand.
Similarly, last year two dams were blew up to release water from the Chuhe River that grew over crops in eastern Anhui province.
Typhoon In-fa: According to the South China Morning Post, the approaching Typhoon In-fa is believed to be the reason behind the heavy rains. The gale, accompanied by wind currents, carried atmospheric water, concentrating on the city of Zhengzhou, which is surrounded by the Taihang and Funiu mountains.
According to AFP news agency, Li Shuo, a climate analyst at Greenpeace East Asia, said the floods “set off alarm bells for China that climate change is here.” Whereas Benjamin Horton, director of the Singapore Earth Observatory, observed that as a result of global warming, there is more moisture in the Earth’s atmosphere, which leads to heavy rainfall.
The burden on China’s dams is likely to increase as climate change makes extreme weather events more common.
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