Severe rain brings flash floods to eastern China

severe-rain-brings-flash-floods-to-eastern-china

Heavy rainfall flooded parts of eastern China on Wednesday, June 17, 2015 when over 200 millimeters of rain was reported in parts of Shanghai and Jiangsu Province. Nanjing and Changzhou were also flooded, while Wuxi and Suzhou received 70 and 50 cm of rainfall.

The rain started on Tuesday, June 16, and by Wednesday, more than 20 roads in Shanghai were covered in 10 to 20 cm of water, while dozens of residential buildings are flooded in about five to ten centimeters. "I was awakened by the sound of rain last night. It was hard for me to reach work this morning, since the road in front of my house is like a river," reported Xu, a resident of  Shanghai.

The provinces of Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu and the cities of Chongqing and Shanghai were also heavily affected by the severe rainfall since Tuesday.

Flood-control headquarters in Hubei warned that water levels in several lakes and around 400 reservoirs have overstepped warning levels.

The rains have made a heavy impact on the economy, causing a loss of 680 million Yuan (111.2 million US dollars) to the province. More than 798 000 people are affected by the floods.

The heavy flooding caused severe damage to a huge farm, leaving behind 16 000 pig carcasses which have to be cleaned up by the Health and Safety authorities.

72-hr rainfall accumulation as observed by GPM. Image credit: Google Earth/GPM.

A severe weather warning was issued by the National Meteorological Center, on Wednesday morning, forecasting that heavy rainfall will continue to batter parts of Hubei, Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Guizhou provinces, and the city of Shanghai on coming Thursday.

Featured image: 72-hr rainfall accumulation as observed by GPM. Image credit: Google Earth/GPM.

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