China issues ‘once in a century’ flood alert as 127million people brace for torrential rain & rivers rising by 19ft
CHINA is bracing for severe floods only seen “once in a century” after landslides in the south of the country.
More than 120 million people are preparing for torrential rains that will cause a major river to swell by up to 19 feet.
Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes and dramatic pictures show the streets and cities filled with water.
State TV channel CCTV said severe rains had sparked landslides in the Guangdong region – home to 127 million people – near capital Hong Kong.
The sudden dramatic movement “trapped” residents and injured at least six.
Now China’s national weather office has warned residents of major storms tonight and into tomorrow – sparking further floods.
CCTV warned that three particular locations in the Bei River Basin, part of the 400-mile stretch of water that runs past Guangdong, will “experience flooding seen around once a century… due to the impact of heavy precipitation”.
River waters are set to flood by up to 19 feet above the warning limit early tomorrow morning.
Over 80,000 people have been evacuated from the province, in the south east of the country.
More than a million homes have been left without power and hundreds of schools were forced to close.
Other parts of the water basin are expected to see the kind of floods only seen once every 50 years.
Warning gages along the Bei River raised the alarm at twenty different monitoring points on Saturday.
Eighty rescuers are working “day and night” to help desperate civilians in the area.
Shocking footage shows the mud-tinged waters filling main roads and carrying cars down rivers.
One picture shows a man cycling past what used to be a park but is now more of a lake leading over to a vast stretch of river.
Birds eye pictures show swollen rivers spilling over into field.
And residential streets left brimming with brown silty water as people shield their heads or try to escape by boat.
Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, Shaogua and have been particularly hard hit by the floods.
By this morning Shaogua had recorded almost 600mm of rainfall in April when last year saw just over 400mm.
Emergency rescue teams, flooding experts and patrol squads have been sent to monitor the situation.
Cars have been damaged and trees felled in the intense weather.
Local weather officials said the situation is “grim”.
One person on Chinese social media site Weibo wrote: “Please look at Zhaoqing’s Huaiji County, which has become a water town.
“The elderly and children at the countryside don’t know what to do with power outages and no signal.”
Another said: “It rained like a waterfall for an hour and a half on the highway driving home last night.
“I couldn’t see the road at all.”