What’s new: China’s Ministry of Water Resources warned (link in Chinese) Wednesday that another wave of flooding could be on the way over the next three days in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and one of its tributaries, as deadly inundations continue to ravage the country.
The ministry also forecast that the Yangtze’s middle reaches, as well as China’s second-largest fresh water body, Dongting Lake, will see rising water levels again over the next three days. It also predicted that the water levels of Poyang Lake, which on Sunday hit their highest going back to 1998, would fall slowly over the period.
The China Meteorological Administration warned on Wednesday that heavy rainfall in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River over the next 10 days could result in “a high risk of disaster.”
The background: China has been facing its worst flooding in decades since continuous downpours began lashing southern China in early June. The devastating inundations have so far left 141 people dead or missing and caused 2.25 million residents to be evacuated from their homes, according to the country’ s emergency management ministry.
On Sunday, China raised its national flood response level from three to two, the second-highest in a four-tier system, while Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak first emerged late last year, did the same as early as July 6.
Contact editor Marcus Ryder (marcusryder@caixin.com)
