KABUL (Pajhwok): At least 21 people have been killed due to heavy rains and flash floods in China, a media report said on Wednesday.
Triggered by heavy rainfall, flash floods swept through southern and central parts of China on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
It said the floods also closed schools and businesses and disrupted transport and power supplies.
China’s weather agency said areas of Jiangxi, Anhui, Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou, Guangxi, Guangdong and Hainan face a high risk of rain-related disasters, including landslides, flash floods, and severe urban flooding and waterlogging.
Authorities said they had allocated 150 million yuan ($22.04 million) for disaster relief and launched emergency responses in several affected areas.
Many residents in Jingzhou, a city in central Hubei, were seen knee-deep in water and able to catch fish swimming in the streets, according to images posted on the Chinese video platform Douyin. Some cars were nearly completely submerged on roads surrounded by residential and commercial buildings.
Ten people were confirmed dead after a pickup truck carrying 15 farm workers fell into a flooded river in China’s southwestern Guangxi region amid heavy rain, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
In separate incidents, heavy rain and flooding killed four people in southwestern Guizhou province, four others in southern Hunan province, and three in a low-lying village in central Hubei province, CCTV said. A number of people remain missing.
Schools, businesses, and transport services have been suspended, while authorities are relocating residents in some parts of Hubei and Hunan, state media reported.
Chinese meteorologists warned that heavy rainfall would spread towards the eastern and southern parts of the country over the next two days, with areas around the Yangtze River expected to receive the heaviest rain.
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