Workers help transfer an elderly resident in Xuanzhou village in Wuzhou, South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on June 19, 2022. The local authorities issued an evacuation notice the previous day to prevent risks associated with heavy rain and floods. Photo: cnsphoto

China's weather monitoring departments issued alerts for rainstorms, flooding, mountain torrents and geological hazard on Sunday, urging local authorities to strengthen real-time monitoring and early warnings and carry out preemptive public evacuations.

The National Meteorological Center warned of torrential rain in the eastern, southern and southwestern regions of China from 8 pm Sunday to 8 pm Monday, with a high risk of flooding in Anhui, Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces in East China.

The Ministry of Water Resources and China's Meteorological Administration issued this year's first red alert - the top alert for mountain torrents, warning that it's highly possible there will be mountain flood disasters in the northeast part of East China's Jiangxi and west part of East China's Zhejiang.

According to China's four-tier color-coded weather warning system, the red alert represents the most severe warning, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

Yellow geological hazard alerts were issued in East China's Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian and Jiangxi, Central China's Hubei and Hunan, as well as South China's Guangdong and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. East China's Jiangxi on Sunday issued the first highest level of warning for landslides and mudslides after the long-lasting heavy rainstorm from Sunday to Tuesday. 

Five villagers were killed in Liuzhou in Guangxi after a wooden building collapsed due to heavy rain. Liuzhou has raised the flood warnings level on Sunday, given that downpours are expected to continue.

The Ministry of Emergency Management sent working groups and experts to Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi for flood prevention and rescue with relief supplies on the way, and it called for full efforts in protecting the public in flood-related disaster-hit areas.

Fujian has evacuated more than 210,000 people as of Sunday. 946 people from Hunan's Luxi county were evacuated on Sunday.

Global Times