Nearly 70,000 residents in southern China have been evacuated following severe flooding caused by Typhoon Wutip, according to Chinese state media reports on Wednesday.
Large parts of Zhaoqing city, located in Guangdong province, were submerged, with floodwaters inundating shopfronts and covering roads.
Footage broadcast by state television CCTV revealed rescuers pushing stranded vehicles out of the water and ferrying residents to safety using small boats.
Other scenes showed emergency personnel wading through floodwaters while carrying stranded individuals on their backs.
The flooding affected approximately 183,000 people in Huaiji County, part of Zhaoqing, where authorities deployed over 10,000 rescue workers, according to the state news agency Xinhua.
The heavy rains and flooding extended beyond Guangdong, impacting much of the neighbouring Guangxi region as well.
Video footage from Guangxi captured rescuers hauling a crowded rubber boat through knee-deep waters amid continued rainfall on Tuesday.
Typhoon Wutip, China’s first typhoon of the year, initially made landfall on the island province of Hainan last Friday before moving into Guangdong on Saturday. The storm brought winds of up to 128 kilometres per hour (80 miles per hour) before weakening into a severe tropical storm over the weekend.
Despite its reduced intensity, Wutip has continued to deliver heavy rain across southern China and Zhejiang province in the east, where officials issued emergency alerts warning of flooding risks.
In certain locations, rainfall totals have exceeded 100 millimetres, as reported by the China Meteorological Administration.
Vietnamese authorities reported on Monday that seven people had died in the country due to flooding and heavy rains linked to Wutip.
China has faced a series of extreme weather events in recent summers, ranging from intense heat and drought to severe downpours and floods.
Although China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, it is also a leader in renewable energy development and has set a target to reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2060.
Last August, similarly heavy rains triggered by Typhoon Gaemi, which originated in the Philippines and Taiwan before striking eastern China, resulted in at least 30 deaths and left many missing.
