A devastating wave of flooding triggered by days of relentless torrential rain has left at least 39 people dead in southern China, official sources have confirmed. The disaster unfolds as communities across the region brace for the arrival of another powerful storm that is tracking towards the eastern coast and Taiwan.
The vast majority of the fatalities occurred in the locality of Hengzhou, where a section of a reservoir dam gave way under the pressure of rising waters. The resulting torrent inundated low-lying communities, claiming 26 lives. Ding Wei, vice mayor of Nanning, which is the municipality overseeing the area, stated that search and rescue teams are still actively looking for nine people who remain missing across the wider Guangxi region.
The severe weather system, initially driven by Tropical Storm Maysak, brought unprecedented rainfall to Guangxi beginning last weekend. The deluge caused multiple reservoirs to burst their banks, submerging homes and cutting off thousands of residents for several days. While early official updates on Tuesday put the death toll at six, the figure has climbed sharply as emergency workers reach previously isolated areas.
Attention is now turning to the coast, where Typhoon Bavi is charting a northwesterly course across the sea. The storm is projected to skirt past outer Japanese islands before tracking north of Taiwan and making landfall on the Chinese mainland, likely hitting Fujian or Zhejiang province this weekend.
In northern Taiwan, fishing fleets packed into ports on Thursday, while coastal residents finalised preparations for torrential downpours and severe gales. Although Bavi was downgraded from a super typhoon on Thursday, forecasters at Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration warned that the system remains highly dangerous, with sustained wind speeds of up to 184 kilometres per hour. The storm’s outer bands have already caused disruption further south in the Philippines, where maritime authorities barred vessels from leaving northern ports and several cities suspended school classes as the tempest bypassed northern Luzon.
Back in the flood-stricken province of Guangxi, a massive military and civilian rescue operation is underway. Troops successfully evacuated more than 10,000 students and teachers who had become trapped inside school buildings surrounded by deep water in Guigang, located a short distance northeast of Hengzhou. State media broadcasts showed rescue boats navigating flooded campus grounds to collect students wearing flotation vests.
The rapidly rising waters have also caused significant disruption to local wildlife and domesticated animals. In Guigang, a local zoo reported that more than 100 animals, including exotic birds, porcupines, and two zebras, had washed away or gone missing. Meanwhile, residents in Hengzhou have been advised to take extra care after reports that numerous snakes escaped from a commercial breeding facility during the peak of the flooding. Local medical teams have distributed anti-venom stocks and issued public safety guidelines. Nearby, at an animal rescue centre in Binyang County, volunteers waded through waist-deep water to salvage hundreds of displaced cats and dogs.
According to regional emergency services, around 5,700 rescue boats, alongside a fleet of deployment drones, have been mobilised to drop essential supplies, including clean drinking water, and to ferry stranded citizens to safety. Roughly 130,000 people have been successfully relocated to temporary shelters.
While floodwaters have begun to slowly recede in certain districts, meteorological officials warn that further rain is expected across parts of the region over the coming forty-eight hours. Large cleanup operations are currently underway to clear thick mud, remove debris, and sanitise public areas in Hengzhou. Engineers are working to repair damaged road networks, though utility firms have managed to restore electricity supplies to more than 60,000 properties.
Data from China’s National Meteorological Center indicates that vast swathes of Guangxi absorbed between 10 and 40 centimetres of rain over the multi-day deluge, with the hardest-hit zones recording accumulation levels exceeding 90 centimetres.
The extreme weather event follows separate disasters in central China’s Hubei province earlier in the week, where violent thunderstorms and tornadoes left 11 people dead and destroyed numerous homes. Elsewhere in Asia, the impact of the summer monsoon has been equally severe. In southeastern Bangladesh, heavy downpours triggered a series of mudslides in refugee camps this week, killing at least 13 Rohingya refugees as humanitarian agencies struggle to relocate thousands of vulnerable families to safer ground.
