Death toll rises to 33 in China flooding

The death toll from the immense flooding in central China rose to 33 on Thursday, with eight people still missing.

The added deaths come as torrential rains abated in the city of Zhengzhou in the Henan province, which has been hard-hit by the floods, The Washington Post reports. The city experienced a year’s worth of rain in just a few days, leaving millions displaced and without access to food or clean water.

At least 100,000 people have been evacuated out of Zhengzhou, which serves as a major logistics and transportation hub for China.

1/3 Some really distressing videos coming out of Zhengzhou in central China – this driver looks rather calm under pressure. But other videos on WeChat show what appear to be people clearly struggling to keep their heads above the flood waters. Death toll so far is 1, 2 missing pic.twitter.com/P8dEk1B1iC

— Bill Birtles (@billbirtles) July 20, 2021

“The most, most crucial thing is that we don’t have food at the moment. We haven’t eaten since the morning,” Li Xiqin, chief of the Gongji Hospital of Huixian city, told the Post.

“Water, electricity and gas have all stopped,” Li added. “We’ve contacted people for materials, but we don’t know when they will arrive.”

The Post notes that central China, crisscrossed by several tributaries of the Yellow River, is no stranger to flooding, but weather officials have described the intense rain in Zhengzhou as only being seen “once in a thousand years.”

The photos/videos coming from the flood in Henan province in China are quite scary. https://t.co/hBYS7OkkPh ht @KarolineCQKan pic.twitter.com/mW8AhU5UOL

— Akshat Rathi (@AkshatRathi) July 20, 2021

Scientists have warned that the extreme weather conditions being seen in China, like the massive wildfire currently raging in North America, are linked to climate change.

“Such extreme weather events will likely become more frequent in the future,” Johnny Chan, an atmospheric science professor at the City University of Hong Kong, told Reuters. “What is needed is for governments to develop strategies to adapt to such changes.”