Aerial view of a section of a collapsed highway near Meizhou, south China’s Guangdong province, May 1, 2024
PHOTO AFP / CNS
“36 people died and 30 people were injured,” reported the Xinhua news agency, specifying that the lives of those injured were not in danger.
President Xi Jinping ordered authorities to “double down on local rescue operations and treatment of the injured,” CCTV reported Thursday.
Around 500 people were sent to the scene to help with the rescue efforts.
The provincial government “mobilized specialized elite forces and went out of its way to carry out search and rescue operations,” according to Xinhua.
Twenty vehicles were trapped by the collapse of a section of road between the city of Meizhou and Dabu county, in Guangdong province, which occurred around 2:10 a.m. Wednesday (6:10 p.m. GMT Tuesday), involving 54 people in total, said New China.
CCTV said the collapse was a “natural geological disaster” that occurred “under the impact of persistent heavy rain.”
Heavy rains have hit the industrial province of Guangdong, which has Guangzhou as its capital, in recent weeks, causing severe flooding and landslides. In recent days, the torrential rains have been much heavier than normal for this time of year just before the monsoon season.
“Intensifying climate change ‘increases the likelihood of heavy rains that typically only appear during the summer months,’ Yin Zhijie, head of hydrological forecasting at China’s Ministry of Water Resources, said last month. on Chinese national radio.
Parts of central and eastern Guangdong province have received up to 600 millimeters of rain in the past ten days, three times more than the amount normally expected at this time of year, said Thursday the national weather bureau.
Up to 120 millimeters of additional rain is forecast for southwestern areas of the province on Thursday, with further showers in southern China through Sunday.
These conditions “increase the risk of disasters, particularly geological disasters, which have a certain latency period,” the weather bureau said.
Authorities have urged people to plan their trips carefully during the May holidays, which last until Sunday.
Last month, heavy rains in Guangdong province caused flooding that claimed four lives and led to the evacuation of more than 100,000 people.
Last week, a tornado killed five people as it crossed the megalopolis of Guangzhou.
