Extreme rainfall and severe flooding, which meteorologists link to climate change, increasingly pose major challenges for policymakers as they threaten to overwhelm ageing flood defences, displace millions and wreak havoc on China’s $2.8-trillion agricultural sector.
Economic losses from natural disasters exceeded $10bn last July, when the ‘Plum Rains’ — named for their timing coinciding with plums ripening along China’s Yangtze River during the East Asia monsoon — typically reach their peak.
In China’s southwestern province of Guangxi, several buildings slid down hillsides over the past two days after their foundations gave way in waterlogged soil, local media reported.
In contrast, the national meteorological centre forecast scorching heat along the country’s eastern seaboard.
Reuters