At 10 a.m. on June 24 (local time), China's National Meteorological Center (NMC) raised the country's heavy rain warning from orange to red, the highest level. This is also the first red alert for heavy rain in China this year. This severe warning level continued to be maintained on the morning of June 25.
NMC said that since June 17, heavy rains have continuously hit the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Accumulated rainfall in some localities in Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei, and Hunan provinces has reached 250-500 mm, and some places have reached 500-740 mm, such as Changde, Hunan, or Huangshan, Anhui.
The agency forecasts that the core area of this heavy rain will continue to spread from the middle and lower reaches to the north of the southern coastal area of the Yangtze River in the next 3 days, with total rainfall exceeding the historical average for the same period. The agency is forced to remind relevant departments to do a good job of emergency response and rescue work in the face of heavy rain, suspend meetings, close schools and take time off work when necessary.
The capital city of Hunan Province saw 65.1 mm of rain from 9am to 10am on June 24, breaking the local record for rainfall in one hour in June. The total rainfall in one hour here reached 768 million cubic meters, equivalent to 54 times the volume of West Lake in Hangzhou, China. Many subway lines here had to stop operating. The average rainfall in this area also reached 183.3 mm, nearly 50% more than the same period last year, some areas in the central and northern regions even had 1 to 2 times more.
As of yesterday morning, about 64,000 people had been evacuated from five cities in the eastern province of Anhui. Meanwhile, water levels in Zhejiang province, also in the east of the country, continued to rise. The Xin'anjiang Reservoir in Hangzhou city in the province had to discharge floodwaters for the eighth time since it was put into operation in 1959. This is the largest reservoir in eastern China, with a total capacity of 21.6 billion cubic meters.
As heavy rains cause heavy loss of life and property, China’s National Financial Supervisory Administration has asked the insurance industry to compensate people in the south for the floods. As of noon on June 24, insurance organizations had received 23,600 claims for damages caused by heavy rains, totaling 833 million yuan (about 115 million USD).
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