Dozens dead as tail end of Typhoon Gaemi hits China | Weather News

A storm has hit China with deadly rains and mudslides, devastating homes, roads and crops.

The tail end of Typhoon Gaemi has hit China and North Korea with torrential rains, floods and mudslides, reportedly claiming dozens of lives.

Early Tuesday, it said the death toll had risen by seven since the previous day, when a landslide killed at least 15 people, bringing the total number of fatalities reported since Sunday to 22.

The Xinhua news agency reported that four bodies had been found in the city of Zixing. State broadcaster CCTV reported that the bodies of three other missing people had been found in a nearby village.

Hunan has been experiencing heavy rain for days after tropical storm Gaemi moved inland after making landfall at typhoon strength in neighboring Fujian Province on the Chinese coast. The storm hit Taiwan hard last week.

All deaths in China were recorded in Hunan province. Three more people were reported missing on Tuesday.

Xinhua added that the rains damaged nearly 1,000 houses, forced over 11,000 people to evacuate and destroyed 1,345 roads in Zixing. Some parts of the city saw record rainfall, with some areas receiving 645 mm (25 inches) in just 24 hours.

At the same time, elsewhere in the province, nearly 4,000 residents were evacuated due to a dam burst.

The floods occurred after a landslide destroyed a guesthouse in Hunan on Sunday, killing 15 people.

China is experiencing a summer of extreme weather conditions, with parts of the country affected by heavy rains while other regions suffer intense heat waves.

On Monday, China’s National Meteorological Center issued an orange warning, the second highest level, for rainstorms in much of the south, southwest and center of the country, as well as in Beijing, Hebei province and Tianjin in the north.

The flood caused major dams to break, leading to the inundation of large areas of agricultural land. CCTV reported that the Ministry of Finance has allocated 238 million yuan ($33 million) in disaster relief and agricultural assistance.

Weather experts attribute the devastating rains to a combination of southwest monsoon and Gaemi.

The combination has also triggered storms in northeast China and North Korea, with the rains raising the level of the Yalu River that separates the two countries. Severe flooding has been reported in the Chinese border city of Dandong and in the North Korean part.