Rainstorms cause riverbank to burst
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Rainstorms caused a riverbank to burst in Northeast China's Liaoning province early on Wednesday, forcing authorities to evacuate more than 3,000 residents, local authorities said.
The 20-meter breach occurred at 4:30 am at Tieling county's Aji section of the Shengli River, a branch of the Liaohe River, said an official from the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters. The burst has submerged 333 hectares of farmland.
Rainwater has also inundated several streets of the county. Near a primary school, there is water recorded as deep as one meter. Parents were seen carrying their children on their shoulders after school closed.
"It's rare that even the streets downtown are flooded with water. It's too dangerous for the kids to walk through," said Li Mingxin, mother of a 10-year-old boy.
According to authorities, 14 drainage-pumping stations around the city have run at full capacity since Tuesday morning. But the rain is so heavy that they need more time to drain the water.
The rains have also caused 27 reservoirs in Shenyang and Tieling to spill over. Torrential rains across the province have resulted in serious flooding on the streets and have stopped traffic in several cities.
"I was shocked while I was driving past an overpass. There was a 'swimming pool' underneath it. The water is over a meter deep and even trucks can't pass through," said Wang Bin, who works in Shenbei district of the provincial capital of Shenyang.
In Xinmin, a city near Shenyang, rainwater has mixed into the water supply resulting in a 16-hour supply cut on Wednesday.
"Hundreds of fish have been washed away by the rains," said Li Huijuan, owner of a fishpond in Xinmin. She said she has suffered a loss of about 8,000 yuan.
From 5 pm on Monday to 7 am on Wednesday, an average 87 millimeters of precipitation fell in Liaoning, one of the heaviest rainfalls since 1994.
According to the provincial water resources department, the rains have affected some 880,000 people in Shenyang, Jinzhou, Tieling and Panjin, with a total of 7,433 people evacuated.
