Heavy rains continued to sweep across China on Friday, with downpours and short-term hail in some areas.
In southern China, the scope of rainstorms diminished obviously on Friday compared with the previous two days, with Guangdong and Guangxi expected to experience the heaviest rains of this round of prolonged downpour from Friday afternoon to the night.
The National Meteorological Center on Friday issued a blue alert, the lowest of China's color-coded weather warning system, for rainstorms, warning that from 14:00 Friday to 14:00 Saturday, parts of south, southwest and north China will experience heavy rains, with torrential rains expected to hit parts of Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan Island. Some of the affected areas will see thunderstorms and gales.
The precipitation in the northern part of the country mainly concentrated in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Moderate to heavy rains started to hit the region on Thursday night, with torrential downpours in some places.
The meteorological authorities predicted that the rainy weather in the eastern part of northern China would weaken and stop by Friday night.
As of 13:00 Beijing Time on Friday, the two airports in the Chinese capital had rescheduled a total of 182 flights due to the rains, including 44 at the Capital International Airport and 138 at the Beijing Daxing International Airport, according to the North China Air Traffic Management Bureau.
Guangdong's Provincial Command Headquarters for Floods, Droughts, and Wind activated a Level-IV flood emergency response on Thursday, as the meteorological bureau forecast intense rain and severe convection weathers with strong winds and hail, warning of possible floods, mountain torrents, geological disasters, and waterlogging.
Affected by the persistent downpours, the Xiangjiang River in Guangxi's Quanzhou County witnessed its first flood crest of this year on Thursday. The local power station has opened its sluice gates to discharge floodwater at 660 cubic meters per second.
On the same day, in Yueyang City of central China's Hunan Province, gales blew off the tiles on the roof of a school canteen, and caused damage to the doors and windows of the teaching building. The school was urgently closed and evacuated all the 1,049 students to safety.
The strong convection weathers caused power outages in the urban area and multiple townships across Yueyang City, and damaged some communication, transportation and water conservancy facilities, but reported no human casualties.
The local government responded quickly and dispatched rescue teams to evacuate 745 affected people to safe places.
At present, the damaged communication and transportation facilities have basically been restored.
Xiushui County in east China's Jiangxi Province experienced short-term heavy rain and hail on Thursday, triggering small-scale landslides and other geological disasters in some areas.
Local authorities immediately organized personnel to investigate conditions at the disaster sites and evacuated the residents in the adjacent areas.
In the northwestern province of Gansu, heavy rains hit Lanzhou, Dingxi, Linxia, Baiyin and Longnan cities on Thursday, with warnings for hails issued in some areas.
The cold air brought snow to Tianzhu County in the province, reducing visibility on the expressway. The local expressway administration promptly mobilized snow removal vehicles to clear the road surface. Traffic was resumed at 16:00 on Thursday.
Heavy rains continue to sweep across China
