Persistent heavy rains have triggered flooding in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the south and Chongqing Municipality in the southwest, prompting locals to take emergency measures to evacuate affected population.
As of 15:00 on Sunday, water levels in 11 rivers across Guangxi exceeded dangerous lines, prompting local hydrological center to issue an orange flood warning on the day.
In Liuzhou City, a local hydrological station recorded a warning water level of 82.50 meters at 08:05 on Sunday, with some low-lying urban areas submerged.
"We arrived here at 08:30. The water level wasn't this high back then, but it has been rising steadily. We are a team of 16 people in total and we have four rubber dinghies. Now we are evacuating people, with over 100 in need of help," said Wang Liandong, leader of a voluntary search and rescue team.
At 08:20 on Sunday, the city's maritime safety administration upgraded its flood control emergency response to Level III.
Chongqing Municipality was also hit by rains for days, with most parts experiencing moderate to heavy rain from 08:00 on Sunday to 08:00 on Monday, according to the local hydrological monitoring station.
Water authorities forecast that water levels of some small and medium-sized rivers in central and southeastern Chongqing will rise to varying degrees by 08:00 Tuesday, before stabilizing across local watercourses from Tuesday daytime with no apparent rising.
Persistent heavy rains trigger flooding in Guangxi, Chongqing
China's steel industry has achieved intensive breakthroughs in high-end precision materials since the beginning of this year, with a batch of advanced specialty steels empowering frontier industries including electronics, new energy and high-end equipment.
In the mobile communication era of 4G, the thickness required for an ultra-thin low-carbon steel foil is 0.12 mm to enable convenient and speedy signal transmission.
Such a demanding requirement is tightened to a mere 0.10 mm in today's 5G new era, which means more complicated techniques for its manufacturers.
For a long time, the rolling methods relied heavily on foreign enterprises. However, Shougang Group teamed up with the University of Science and Technology Beijing (USTB) in 2013 to conduct scientific research and development on the continuous rolling process of "5G steel," a nickname of the ultra-thin low-carbon steel foil.
The "5G steel" that independently developed by China - as thin as 0.07 mm - has entered mass production and been widely used for 5G base station signal receivers, signal transmission filters, and integrated circuit boards, and new energy battery connection pieces.
"Although it's thin, it has excellent toughness and feels like paper, and we can easily bend it and repeatedly fold it," said Hu Na, an engineer at Shougang Jingtang Steel United Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. She folded the steel into a classic "paper plane" to show its flexibility.
This year, China has been using specialty steels to empower the development of new quality productive forces.
For instance, in industrial sector, China has continued to push performance limits of silicon steel -- an iron-silicon alloy used primarily in electrical applications due to its good magnetic properties, with 0.1-millimeter-grade non-oriented electrical steel achieving global top-tier status in electrical steel iron loss indicators.
The material now is widely used in drive motors for new energy vehicles and joint motors for humanoid robots.
The breakthroughs came as China's steel industry continues to shift toward higher value-added products, with the manufacturing sector's share of steel consumption surpassing that of the construction sector for the first time in 2025.
China makes intensive breakthroughs in high-end steel products in 2026
