QINGYUAN: Floods swa­mped cities in southern China’s densely populated Pearl River Delta following record-breaking rains, sparking worries about the region’s defe­nces against bigger deluges induced by extreme weather events.

The province once dubbed the “factory floor of the world” is prone to summer floods.

Since Thursday, Guangdong has been battered by unusually heavy, sustained and widespread rainfall, with powerful storms ushering in an earlier-than-normal start to the province’s annual flooding season in May and June.

In Qingyuan, a relatively small city of four million, residents counted their losses. “My rice fields are fully flooded, my fields are gone,” Huang Jingrong, 61, told Reuters.

Over the weekend, waterways in Guangdong overflowed including the river near Huang’s village.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2024