BEIJING (AP) — A southern Chinese region on Wednesday was reeling from the destruction and widespread flooding caused by record-breaking rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Maysak.
Officials said six people were killed, and 11 others were missing in the Guangxi region by Tuesday evening. The severe weather forced 130,000 people to evacuate, according to the regional propaganda office.
Some residents were still waiting to be rescued. Lu Xiaofei, who works in Shenzhen, a tech hub near Hong Kong, said her brother's family was stuck at his house in Lu village in Qintang district. His brother was with his wife, his 9-month-old baby, their parents and grandfather.
“The water in the house is over one person’s height. They have to all move to the second floor. The power has been out since yesterday morning, and now they don’t have running water, either,” Lu told The Associated Press in a phone interview.
Lu said her brother told her that the water level rose last night and their situation was so dire that drinkable water would be running out soon, while local authorities had not reached out to them. Many villagers nearby were facing the same challenges, she said.
Others called for help on social media, showing videos of their inundated surroundings following the flooding and highlighting their lack of resources.
Local media Litchi News reported that snakes from breeding facilities were washed away and were at large in Hengzhou city, with some attempting to enter houses. It quoted a villager saying that over a dozen of people were bitten.
The national meteorological center said heavy rain has been battering central-eastern and southern parts of Guangxi since last Saturday, with cumulative rainfall amounts reaching 100 mm to 400 mm (about 4 inches to 16 inches) in some areas. Some hard-hit areas recorded over 900 mm (35 inches), it said. The weather agency said heavy rain would continue to affect the areas on Wednesday.
Some train services were suspended in the region for safety reasons.
While Guangxi was grappling with floods, Super Typhoon Bavi is expected to hit parts of southeastern China over the weekend.
Elsewhere in Asia, severe weather also caused deaths. Landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains in southeastern Bangladesh killed several Rohingya refugees, including five children. Heavy monsoon rains battered parts of neighboring India, leaving over a dozen of people dead over the past few days.
AP writer Fu Ting in Washington contributed to this story.
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, rescuers evacuate stranded residents in the aftermath of tropical storm Maysak in Qinzhou City, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Tuesday, July 7, 2026. (Zhang Ailin/Xinhua via AP)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. military attacked Iran early Wednesday after it said Tehran struck three ships in the Strait of Hormuz, part of an American effort that also revoked the Islamic Republic’s ability to openly sell crude oil in the world market. Iran retaliated with strikes targeting Bahrain and Kuwait.
The regional crossfire raised the risks that an interim agreement to halt fighting in the war could break down, putting the Middle East again at risk of a wider conflict.
The attacks on shipping and the resulting strikes came during the dayslong funeral for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed Feb. 28 in the war’s first moments at age 86. The funeral, which ends Thursday, had been thought to be a period of lower tensions — though mourners have repeatedly called for the killings of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Negotiations to reach a final deal had been due to start after Khamenei’s burial and focus on the toughest matters, including fully reopening the strait and rolling back Tehran’s disputed nuclear program. But the new attacks threw that into question.
“The era of bullying and extortion is over,” Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf wrote on X. “It leads nowhere. We don’t fold.”
The U.S. military’s Central Command said American forces launched the strikes “to impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway.”
It said it hit Iranian targets including air defense systems, radars and over 60 small boats used by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. Those boats have been key in harassing ships in the strait.
The U.S. military remains “postured and prepared to hold Iran accountable when the agreement is not adhered to or obeyed,” it added, saying this round of attacks had ended.
Iran acknowledged the strikes, but offered no word on any losses. Iranian state media reported the sound of explosions in Bandar Abbas, Qeshm and Sirik.
Wednesday morning, both Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, and Kuwait, home to U.S. Army forces, sounded missile alerts. The Guard issued a statement acknowledging targeting U.S. military installations in both countries.
“The child-killing and terrorist U.S. army ... openly violated the ceasefire and violated the Islamabad understanding by launching an airstrike on a number of coastal bases and civilian stations on the coasts of Hormozgan and Mahshahr provinces,” it said, without addressing the attacks on ships in the strait.
Bahrain sounded its alert a second time later Wednesday morning.
A similar spate of Iranian attacks on shipping and U.S. retaliatory strikes occurred late last month — which similarly drew Iranian attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait. Wednesday’s strikes also came as Trump was in Turkey for a summit of the NATO military alliance.
The U.S. also revoked a license that authorized the sale of Iranian oil as part of the interim deal. That had allowed Iran for the first time in years to conduct oil sales openly on the international market for U.S. dollars. Iran long had been suspected of selling sanctioned crude oil at below-market prices to China.
The decision came after the strikes on shipping. One tanker was traveling off the coast of Oman when it was hit and caught fire, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. Iranian state television said the liquefied natural gas tanker came under attack after ignoring warnings but did not directly claim the assault.
The other two ships sustained some damage, but no one was injured, and both continued on their way in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.K. maritime agency said. Iran has maintained a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz since the war, disrupting global energy markets as a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the channel in peacetime. The ships attacked Tuesday all appeared to be using a route close to Oman’s shore, rather than one ordered by Tehran.
Tehran repeatedly has declared that only its approved route through the strait is safe and is suspected of attacking other ships that have used the Oman route.
Majed al-Ansari, a spokesperson for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, said the Qatari tanker Al Rekayyat was targeted in an “unacceptable attack” on international navigation and global energy security. He said Qatar holds Iran “fully legally responsible.”
Iran and the United States agreed as part of the interim deal to allow ships to pass without paying charges for 60 days. But Tehran insisted it must control the vessels’ routes and later charge fees for passage, which would upend decades of practice in the waterway.
The U.S. and many Gulf Arab states say they will not agree to Iran charging for passage through the strait.
Mourners surround a truck carrying the coffin of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a funeral procession in Najaf, Iraq, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
A group of people stands in shallow water as a cargo ship appears anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Tuesday, June 30, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
Posters of Khamenei are displayed along the main streets ahead of the funeral ceremony for Iran's former leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S.-Israeli attacks in Najaf, Iraq, Tuesday, July 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil)
A man holds a picture of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the eve of funeral ceremonies in Karbala, Iraq, Tuesday, July 7, 2026, as the dayslong funeral ceremonies continue in Iraq with events in the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
In this photo released by Iran's Supreme Leader's office, mourners carry the coffin of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during funeral prayers held as part of the dayslong funeral ceremonies at the Holy Jamkaran Mosque in Qom, Iran, Tuesday, July 7, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
An Iraqi Shiite soldier chants on the eve of funeral ceremonies for the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outside the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf, Iraq, Tuesday, July 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
