Guangxi, China

Southern China has been drenched with heavy rains from Typhoon Haikui. For seven consecutive days, the slow-moving weather system has brought relentless downpours to the region, causing flooding in low-lying areas, road blockages, and trapping residents.

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Evacuation measures

In rural Bobai county — in China's Guangxi region — rescuers on assault boats have been working diligently since Sunday night to evacuate stranded residents from homes submerged in water over two metres (6.6 feet) deep, reported state media on Monday.

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The heavy rain is expected to persist in Guangxi over the next few days, which can exacerbate the flooding situation further.

Haikui

Typhoon Haikui, which initially made landfall in China's Fujian province on September 5, has since weakened to a tropical storm. 

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However, the storm's residual circulation continues to wreak havoc in southern China. The populous city of Shenzhen, as per a Reuters report, has experienced its heaviest rainfall since record-keeping began in 1952. Neighbouring Hong Kong also endured its worst storm in 140 years.

Alarm bells

Scientists have reportedly raised concerns about an increased risk of disasters, as typhoons hitting China continue to intensify and their paths grow more complex.

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This threat, as per them, extends to coastal cities like Shenzhen, which regularly brave tropical cyclones and already have robust flood defence systems in place.

Shao Sun, a climatologist at the University of California, Irvine, explained, "Typhoons that move far inland affect regions historically less exposed to heavy rainfall and strong wind, often with lower disaster resilience, leading to more severe losses." 

"In this case of Shenzhen, the disaster was mainly due to the slow westward movement of Haikui's residual circulation, which nearly stagnated in its spatial position from the afternoon of September 7 to the early hours of September 8, and a 'train effect' of heavy rainfall occurred, causing the event to exceed its expected intensity," he added.

"Train effect" refers to a cumulative effect where successive convective cloud systems pass over the area, causing a significant accumulation of rainfall and significantly increasing the risk of heavy or even extreme rainfall.

(With inputs from agencies)

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