Beijing, Aug 4 (EFE).- More than 1.2 million people have been evacuated from the flooded areas of China’s northern Hebei province, where waters have finally began to recede after the heavy rains have stopped after lashing the region for days.
Due to the combined impact of typhoon Doksuri and cold and hot air currents, torrential rains continued to lash Hebei for nearly 144 hours between 8 am on July 27 to approximately the same time on Aug. 2, with an average rain of 146.2 millimeters being recorded across the province, state daily Global Times reported on Thursday night.
The total precipitation of 27.5 billion cubic meters was equal to double the total capacity of all the large and medium dams of the province.
In the entire province, which has an area similar to Uruguay and has a population of over 70 million, seven storage areas were used to divert 1.8 billion cubic meters of water, a step that helped in managing the floods and prevented the dams from collapsing.
Li Na, the deputy director of the department of water resources of Hebei Province, said that average rainfall in Zhuozhou amounted to 398 millimeters as of Wednesday evening during the recent rainstorms.
“Despite rainfall easing, it will take some time for the water level to recede,” Li told state broadcaster CCTV.
The National Meteorological Center warned that the rainfall has moved into Northeast China since Wednesday with the possibility of “extreme heavy” rains.
Remaining effects of typhoon Doksuri could cause heavy rains in northeastern China, a region which has started witnessing flooding since Thursday.
Doksuri, which left a trail of destruction in its passage from China’s south to the north, has killed at least 22 people while tens of thousands have been evacuated.
The storm caused the highest rainfall in Beijing in 140 years.
Chinese authorities have recently warned of the continuing high risk of floods and typhoons in August.
in 2021 and 2022, summers in central China were marked by heavy rains not seen in decades, which resulted in more than 300 deaths, even as a persistent drought affected the southern parts of the country.
At the time, Song Lianchun – a meteorologist at the National Meteorological Center – had said that even if an extreme weather event may not be directly caused by climate change, in the long run global warming is resulting in an increase in the intensity and frequency of such events. EFE
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