CHINA (Reuters) – Downpours swept across much of central and east China on Monday causing flash floods and leading to subsequent disasters such as landslides across many parts.
The rain-triggered floods on Monday washed away the road base and caused a collapse of several sections of a local main road in the county of Yongjia of east China’s Zhejiang Province.
A bridge section was closed to motorists after its piers were severely damaged in the flood. Villagers were seen carefully passing over the bridge on foot as the damaged structure was deemed too dangerous for vehicles to pass.
Local authorities closed the affected road sections and dispatched teams of construction workers to repair the damaged road.
Meanwhile, floodwaters brought by a downpour starting since early Sunday drenched 35 houses in the city of Huaihua in central China’s Hunan Province. Evacuated residents were forced to move to a makeshift shelter on Sunday night.
Extreme floodwater in east China’s Jiangxi Province toppled a 30-year-old plane tree in a downtown neighborhood of the provincial capital of Nanchang, knocking down a house and injuring one of the two elderly residents trapped inside.
Firefighters used a chainsaw to forge their way through the debris and pulled out the two stricken residents within 30 minutes. The two were then immediately sent to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Firefighters in Xiushui County of east China’s Jiangxi Province also rescued two tourists who were trapped on an island on a flood-swollen river.
The firefighters waded through the currents with a safety cord across the river to deliver life jackets to the trapped tourists before taking them back to the bank.
More than 2,000 reservoirs in Jiangxi Province’s Yugan County faced the risk of floodwater spilling out to villages downstream on Monday, following days of torrential rain.
At one local reservoir, a dam was found to have had six breach spots that could lead to a potential dam failure.
Local authorities organized experts, delivered construction materials such as gravel, and dispatched large machinery to help local villagers repair the dam in time.
Authorities also sent 23 teams of experts to assess the risk of dam failures at all reservoirs in the county with the safety of local residents a prime concern.
