Floods swamped cities in southern China's densely populated Pearl River Delta following record-breaking rains, sparking worries about the region's defences against bigger deluges induced by extreme weather events, APA reports citing Reuters.
The province once dubbed the "factory floor of the world" is prone to summer floods. Its defences against disruptive floods were severely tested in June 2022 when Guangdong was pounded by the heaviest downpours in six decades. Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated.
Since Thursday, Guangdong has been battered by unusually heavy, sustained and widespread rainfall, with powerful storms ushering in an earlier-than-normal start to the province's annual flooding season in May and June.
In Qingyuan, a relatively small city of 4 million, residents counted their losses.
"My rice fields are fully flooded, my fields are gone," Huang Jingrong, 61, told Reuters.
"I won't be making any money this year, I will be making losses," he told Reuters, estimating his losses at about 100,000 yuan ($13,800).
"What can we do? We won't get reimbursed for our losses."
Over the weekend, waterways in Guangdong overflowed including the river near Huang's village, where flood-waters have reached the second storey of houses after washing out paddy and potato fields.
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