Heavy rains trigger flash floods across China, prompting swift emergency response

The intense rains across China have triggered flash floods, landslides, and widespread infrastructure damage in multiple regions, prompting emergency response.

Danba, a county in southwest China's Sichuan Province, has been battered by heavy rain since Wednesday, with the maximum hourly precipitation of 23.2 millimeters. The downpour triggered multiple flash floods and mudslides across 12 towns. A total of 1,719 people of 645 households have been relocated to safety.

On Friday evening, a major mudslide struck Badi, a town in the county, forcing the evacuation of 491 people from two villages.

Heavy rain led to closure of dozens of roads in Beichuan County, Sichuan's Mianyang City, over the past week, with some of those roads seeing significant damages.

After rain stopped on Saturday, local authorities deployed crews and heavy machinery to clear debris and restore access, reopening more than 130 road sections.

Heavy rain also lashed five counties in Longnan, a city in northwest China's Guansu Province.

As the rain receded on Friday, local emergency response teams began clearing debris, removing landslide blockages to restore traffic flow, and distributing emergency supplies.

"We've provided 700 folding beds, 700 quilts, and 400 emergency kits. Supplies are distributed to affected residents, as they arrived," said Wu Hao, deputy director of the Emergency Response Bureau of Huixian County.

In Daqing, a city in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, the brief but heavy rain, with a precipitation of 40 millimeters an hour, caused urban flooding on Saturday, activating an emergency response. Thanks to the swift response, most waterlogged areas were cleared by nightfall.

Heavy rain also hit Dalad Banner in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Friday evening, triggering a flash flood that trapped two residents.

After a five-hour operation, the two residents were rescued from the floodwater.

Heavy rains trigger flash floods across China, prompting swift emergency response

Northern China has launched full-scale clearing efforts to ensure smooth and safe traffic after multiple regions experienced the first snowfalls of the winter season.

In Inner Mongolia, snowfall began on Thursday night and continued through Friday morning in the northern and western parts of the autonomous region. Ordos City in the west experienced mild to moderate snow in most areas, with the northern part receiving the most snowfall of over five millimeters.

"The snow removal team has been working around the clock to clear snow and reduce slip hazards on sections prone to icing, including bridges, slopes, and curves. This aims to minimize the impacts of snowfall on road traffic," said Liu Feng, chief of a local highway maintenance station.

Snowfall in Jinan, capital of north China's Shandong Province, has been strengthening since 14:00 on Friday, with the local weather service upgrading the snowstorm warning signal from blue to yellow at 19:20 on the day.

Local authorities prepared over 1,670 snow removal machines for operation and immediately started clearing work as precipitation began.

Meanwhile, in north-central China's Gansu, temperatures in the rural Jishishan County dropped about 10 degrees Celsius as the rest of the province was largely affected by Friday's snowfall.

Gansu is a crucial passageway for traffic between China's eastern and western regions, so local authorities acted quickly to ensure highway safety.

"We applied deicing agents on sharp curves, steep slopes, and bridges, and increased patrols on roads in case any emergency situations may come up," said Che Yifan, deputy chief of a local highway maintenance station.

Snow also covered the Chinese capital Beijing on Friday, prompting emergency responses from local transportation authorities, with over 4,000 personnel and more than 2,600 pieces of machinery being dispatched to carry out the clearing effort.

Prompt clearing efforts begin amid season's first snowfall in northern China