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Accidents and disasters in China
ChinaPolitics

Shenzhen flooding: officials in China close schools and release reservoir water amid heavy rain from Typhoon Haikui

  • Amid record-breaking rain in southern China, authorities caution people to stay home where possible while Longgang district opens 151 emergency shelters
  • Former water-treatment engineer says the city has a decades-long history of flooding that could be mitigated with better weather forecasting

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Heavy rain caused by Typhoon Haikui starting falling in Shenzhen on Thursday night. By midnight a decision had been made to release water from the Shenzhen Reservoir. Photo: Weibo
Phoebe Zhang
Heavy rain that started on Thursday has left the southern city of Shenzhen flooded, causing traffic to stall and schools to close, and prompting the release of water from the city’s reservoir just after midnight.

With a red alert warning – the highest in a four-tier system – in place on Friday, local authorities cautioned people to stay home as much as possible and seek official aid if needed.

Shenzhen weather bureau said that by 10.30am Friday, a monitoring station in Luohu district received a record-breaking 526.3mm (20.7 inches) of rainfall in the previous 24 hours.

Heavy rain started on Thursday, flooding Shenzhen. A red alert was in place on Friday. Photo: Weibo
Heavy rain started on Thursday, flooding Shenzhen. A red alert was in place on Friday. Photo: Weibo
On Friday morning, Guangdong provincial Communist Party chief Huang Kunming hosted a video conference in Zhongshan, whose attendees included Meng Fanli, the party secretary of Shenzhen. Huang urged local officials to supervise flood defence and emergency rescue efforts and monitor the weather.
Because of the residual effects of Typhoon Haikui, which made landfall in Taiwan, Fujian and Guangdong this week, the southern coast of mainland China was hit with record-breaking rain, local weather forecasters said.

On Thursday evening, Shenzhen announced a red alert and urged emergency measures be taken to defend against the storm. Two stops on the No.16 metro line, which passes through Longgang district in the eastern part of the city, stopped operating because of flooding risks.

The district government warned of potential flooding around Longgang Zhongxincheng, the most prosperous commercial area in the region. Meanwhile, 151 indoor emergency shelters in the district were opened to the public.

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