Southern China has yet to recover from the flood in mid-June which killed around 25 residents and displaced thousands in 10 Chinese southern provinces and another 160 from flood, landslides and building collapses this week, and another typhoon is heading for the country.
According to Weather.com, super typhoon Nepartak – after wreaking havoc in Taiwan – is headed for China on Saturday. It made its first landfall after 6:30 a.m. near Taitung City in southeastern Taiwan on Friday morning, Taiwan local time.
With a Category 4 equivalent, the tropical cyclone dumped rains on Taiwan of up to 22 inches of rainfall in parts of eastern Taiwan, while on Saturday morning, southern Taiwan received 1 to 4 inches of rainfall. Wind gusts ranged from 80 to 10 miles per hour, although at 5 a.m. on Friday, a 125-mph wind gust hit Taitung.
Weather forecasters warn of heavy rainfall in southeastern China, with tropical storm force winds expected through Saturday evening when Nepartak moves inland and turns into a heavy rain threat. Although the tropical storm continues to weaken since its landfall in Taiwan, authorities said that locally strong wind gusts could result in power outages, uprooting of trees and damage to poorly built structures.
According to The Guardian, Nepartak killed at least three people and injured over 140 in Taiwan. One victim was a 71-year-old woman in Taitung who was hit by a falling cabinet, the second one is a soldier on an island in the Taiwan Strait who fell into the sea while fishing. The third is an unidentified man swept off a beach in Hualien, an eastern county, on late Thursday.
With the National Meteorological Centre warning of gales and torrential rains expected to hit Fujian and Zhejiang, which are coastal regions, on Saturday, more than 37,000 people in Wenzhou, a coastal city in Zhejiang, have been relocated.
Ke Zhiqiang, leader of Green City of Rivers, a Wuhan-based environmental advocacy group, noted the worsening of flooding in urban areas in 2016. He blamed it on shrinking lakes, damaging natural drainage systems.
As of Friday, the death toll in 11 affected southern China provinces has risen to 164, while another 26 are missing. Collapsed houses have reached 73,000 and 1.7 million acres of crops were destroyed. Government estimate of economic losses is at $10 billion, reported the New York Times.