Beijing, Jun. 18, (dpa/GNA) – At least five people have died in heavy rains, flooding and resulting landslides around the city of Meizhou in China’s Guangdong province, and a further four people in Wuping in south-eastern Fujian province, state television reported on Tuesday.
In Meizhou, contact was lost to a 15 people and another 13 were cut off by water and mud. In Fujian, two were missing, following heavy rains across the south of the country since the weekend.
Heavy rains in Xinjiang in the west, China’s largest region by area, caused a landslide in a mountainous area near the capital of Urumqi. A road was washed away, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
A car was hit by the landslide late on Monday evening and contact lost to its four occupants.
Images shown on state television and the internet showed mud flowing through villages, destroying homes and streets. Large areas were under water as rivers burst their banks.
On Tuesday, the weather office predicted heavy rain for Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangxi and Guangxi provinces.
While the southern provinces are experiencing heavy rains, northern regions around Beijing, Tianjin and in Hebei province are suffering a heatwave with temperatures reaching 40 degrees Celsius in some areas.GNA