Since June, China has been dealing with incessant rains in its southern regions. These unusually heavy downpours have led to flooding and landslides, killing over 140 people as of Tuesday morning. The situation has affected over two million residents, forcing them to evacuate their flooded and damaged houses. 

The intense rainfall has been on and off for weeks along the country's longest river – the Yangtze, swelling rivers and lakes and causing banks to burst. The Ministry of Water Resources said on Monday the water levels of 433 rivers in China have crossed the danger mark since early June, with 33 of them rising to historical highs. 

Since June 2, the country has been on a high alert for rainstorms, the longest such alert in 13 years. At least 15 heavy and wide-range downpours have been recorded along the Yangtze River, including record-breaking single-day rainfall in Hubei and Hunan provinces, both located along the middle section of the Yangtze River.

Wang Yongguang, chief forecaster at the National Climate Center (NCC), attributed the intense rainfall this year to the Eastern Asia rainy season, or plum rain as it is more often called in China, which started a week earlier than previous years with higher-than-usual intensity.

Ma Xuekuan, chief forecaster at the National Meteorological Center, pointed to atmospheric circulation, saying that the West Pacific subtropical high, which increases its intensity every summer, brought more moisture from the northern Indian Ocean this year because of higher temperatures in the region.

Last month, reports showed that temperatures in the Arctic Circle had hit an all-time record. However, the two experts did not link the severe flooding to global warming.

Huang Lei from the Climate Change Adaptation Division of NCC, claimed there has been no evidence showing direct causality between climate change and the intense rainfall in the southern regions of China. But Huang also admitted that in recent years, more frequent extreme weather phenomena have been put on record, including unprecedented rainfall.

By Monday night, over 7,000 army personnel have been deployed in the eastern parts of China for flood control and emergency rescue operations, and the central government has earmarked 600 million yuan (about 85.76 million U.S. dollars) to support flood control and relief, according to Xinhua News Agency.

(All image via VCG)

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