A man looks at a flooded river in Guangdong province – Photo: Tingshu Wang / Reuters
The rains caused huge floods in the southern part of China, the disaster affects the lives of tens of millions of people in Guangdong province, reports CNN.
The landslides killed three people, eleven people went missing, and several others were injured, according to the state news agency Xinhua. At least a hundred thousand people had to leave their homes in the province of 127 million.
One of the country’s most populous regions has been hit by torrential rains since Tuesday, four meteorological stations also registered a record amount of precipitation in April.
A weather warning was issued in the region, and attention was drawn to severe storms in the coastal areas. The Chinese state television CCTV, citing the hydrological office, said that in three settlements in the Pei river basin “there will be floods such as are seen once in a century as a result of heavy rains”, reports MTI.
Nearly half of China’s big cities are sinking due to the mass of buildings and water extraction in rapidly expanding settlements, according to a recently published study. Rapid urbanization has side effects in China that threaten the existence of settlements. The population of big cities is growing rapidly, which also results in an increase in water demands. Water is mostly extracted from subsurface layers, and this increases subsidence.
