BEIJING – Major rivers, waterways and reservoirs in China’s Guangdong province are threatening to unleash dangerous floods, forcing the government on April 21 to enact emergency response plans to protect more than 127 million people.

Calling the situation “grim”, local weather officials said sections of rivers and tributaries at the Xijiang and Beijiang river basins are hitting peak water levels in a rare spike that only has a one-in-50 chance of happening in any given year, state broadcaster CCTV news said on April 21.

China’s water resource ministry issued an emergency advisory, CCTV reported.

Guangdong officials urged departments in all localities and municipalities to begin emergency planning to avert natural disasters, and promptly dispense disaster relief funds and materials to ensure affected people have food, clothing, water and a place to live.

The province has seen rain for several days and strong winds due to severe convective weather, which has affected several parts of China over the past few weeks.

A 12-hour stretch of heavy rain, starting from 8pm on April 20, battered the central and northern parts of the province in Zhaoqing, Shaoguan, Qingyuan and Jiangmen.

Almost 20,000 people have been evacuated in Qingyuan, according to state media, and some power facilities in Zhaoqing were damaged, cutting power to some places.

At least 1,103 schools in Zhaoqing, Shaoguan and Qingyuan will suspend classes on April 22, Chinese state radio said.

“Please look at Zhaoqing’s Huaiji county, which has become a water town. The elderly and children in the countryside don’t know what to do with power outages and no signal,” said one user on the popular social media site Weibo.

Raging muddy flood waters swept one vehicle down a narrow street in Zhaoqing, showed a video released by Hongxing News.

“It rained like a waterfall for 1½ hours on the highway when I was driving home last night,” said another Weibo user. “I couldn’t see the road at all.”

The authorities in Qingyuan and Shaoguan in Guangdong also suspended permission for ships to travel via several rivers, with maritime departments dispatching forces to be on duty and to coordinate emergency tugboats and emergency rescue vessels.

Many hydrological stations in the province are seeing exceeding water levels, weather officials warned. In the provincial capital of Guangzhou, a city of 18 million, reservoirs have reached flood limits, city officials announced on April 21.

Data showed 2,609 hydrological stations with daily rainfall greater than 50mm, accounting for about 59 per cent of all observation stations. At 8am on April 21, 27 hydrological stations in Guangdong were on alert.

In neighbouring Guangxi, west of Guangdong, violent hurricane-like winds whipped the region, destroying buildings, state media video footage showed. Some places have also experienced hailstones and major flooding, CCTV said.

In another video, rescuers could be seen trying to save an elderly person clinging to a tree half-submerged in flood waters.

As at 10am, 65 landslides were recorded in the city of Hezhou in Guangxi, state media reported.

Weather forecasters expect heavy rain until April 22 in Guangxi region, and Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang provinces. REUTERS