By Nicoco Chan, Ethan Wang and Xiuhao Chen
SHANGHAI/BEIJING, July 8 (Reuters) – The floodwaters that ravaged southern China this week look set to expand to other provinces with the imminent arrival of Super Typhoon Bavi, with scientists warning extreme weather would only grow more frequent this year.
The expected weather systems will be sure to test the resilience of the country’s densely populated cities and rural communities.
China’s National Climate Center expects up to six typhoons to form in the Northwest Pacific and South China Sea in July, more than the average of 3.8. Of these storms, up to three could make landfall, above the norm of 1.8. The intensity of the cyclones will also be stronger, it said.
Scientists say climate change is increasingly exposing the world’s second-largest economy to destructive weather events, with this year of particular concern due to the expected emergence of the El Nino weather pattern, which could drive up temperatures and fuel more intense typhoons, as hurricanes are known in the Asia-Pacific region.
China is bracing for Super Typhoon Bavi on Saturday, the second tropical cyclone to arrive in a week. Measuring more than 1,000 km (621 miles) in diameter, Bavi briefly made landfall on Monday over the U.S. island of Rota in the Western Pacific with winds in excess of 290 kph (180 mph).
Last week, Typhoon Maysak made landfall on China’s southernmost island province of Hainan and quickly swept into the Chinese region of Guangxi, where the storm wreaked the most havoc. The remnants of Maysak also spawned at least two inland tornadoes in central China.
“The problem with these events is that they’re just increasing,” said Benjamin Horton, dean of the School of Energy and Environment at City University of Hong Kong.
The magnitude of the events is increasing and there is no time to recover and become resilient, warned Horton, who expects more frequent and more intense cyclones later this year to drop unprecedented amounts of rainfall, triggering floods, landslides, crop damage and a loss of lives.
“This is just going to repeat and repeat and repeat,” he said.
WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE
Towns and villages in Hengzhou, the epicentre of the Guangxi floods, were hit by heavy floodwaters on Monday after dams at local reservoirs failed. At least six people have died in Guangxi, officials said, with 375,000 others affected. The death toll is expected to rise.
“At least a thousand people are stranded in the mountains and it’s dark all around and (we need) urgent rescue,” according to a call for help posted on Chinese social media on Tuesday. Reuters has not independently verified the post.
After the failure of a medium-sized reservoir on Monday, floodwaters carrying large amounts of mud and silt have inundated downstream farmland and villages, national broadcaster CCTV said.
In some houses, floodwaters reached the second floor, trapping villagers on rooftops as violent torrents rushed around them, CCTV reported.
The largely rural city of Hengzhou, home to more than 1 million residents, has six medium-sized reservoirs and nearly 200 smaller ones.
It is also the starting point of a 70-billion-yuan ($10.3 billion) canal project that is scheduled to open in September.
“The severe impacts of Maysak and the looming threat of Super Typhoon Bavi indicate that the 2026 season is more intense and damaging than a typical year,” said Hui Su, chair professor of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
“El Nino is shifting typhoon tracks westward toward China’s coast and heightening risks, while climate change makes storms wetter and more destructive.”
Last week, the United Nations weather agency raised its forecast for the rapid emergence of a strong El Nino occurrence in the coming months.
El Nino is a periodic warming of sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, potentially ratcheting up global temperatures and raising the risk of extreme weather, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
($1 = 6.7967 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Nicoco Chan in Shanghai, Ethan Wang, Xiuhao Chen and Ryan Woo in Beijing; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)
