Chinese villagers hit by worst floods in generations say they had no warning

By Liz Lee

The several hundred residents of Pingtou, a village in China's sub-tropical south, have seen plenty of typhoons and rainstorms over the years. But nothing prepared them for this week's flooding - the worst there in generations.

Knee-deep brown water still covered the main road into the village, in Guangdong province, on Friday as residents dragged damaged furniture and home appliances out of their homes, at least four of which collapsed in the downpour earlier this week.

"The older folks here say that in the 100 years we've been here, they've never experienced such flooding," said one villager aged in his 50s who asked to use only his surname Zhong.

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Floodwaters have never before entered his two-storey house, but this time they surged in, wrecking many of his belongings. Water marks on the walls of nearby houses were more than a metre (3.3 feet) high.

It was not immediately clear if anyone had been killed in the village.

A record 622.6 mm (24.5 inches) of rain fell on Guangzhou, the provincial capital from August 2-6 - almost three times average monthly rainfall for the city in August. At least seven people were killed due to flooding there, state media said.

China has been battling with record rainfall in its north and south as well as prolonged heatwaves in its interior.

The government announced on Thursday 430 million yuan ($59.9 million) in fresh funding for disaster relief, taking the total allocated since April to at least 5.8 billion yuan.

But in Pingtou, villagers said they were not getting enough support from local authorities to deal with the aftermath.

Zhong said he was told by officials that there was no relief aid available to deal with the floods.

"There was not even a bottle of mineral water provided to us," he said.

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'NO ALERTS'

Across Guangdong, 75,000 people were evacuated as a precaution, but several residents of Pingtou told Reuters there had been no alerts about flooding in the area - leaving them ill-prepared.

On the night of the heaviest downpour on Tuesday in Pingtou, 73-year-old Zhang was woken up by her worried daughter-in-law in the middle of the night and rushed over to the relative safety of her son's two-storey home.

When the family woke the next day, the roof of Zhang's house had caved in.

"I'd been living in that house for more than 50 years," said Zhang, as she stared at her household items coated in the debris left by the receding waters.

Just outside Pingtou, fish and duck farmer Hu Songlin said the deluge had swept away the fish in his ponds, estimating the immediate losses at about 120,000 yuan.

"Now we won't be able to earn a single cent," his wife Hua said.

Experts have linked China's erratic weather - including floods and droughts - to climate change.

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"We say that global warming can lead to heavier rainfall, but there's only so much water," said Johnny Chan, a professor at the City University of Hong Kong's School of Energy and Environment.

"So if one area has more rain, another area will have less rain. So what we're seeing is that there will be places which are becoming wetter and there will be places which will become much drier."