China Floods: Over 250 dead, 1.7 million displaced

Over 1.7 million people have been displaced and over 250 have died by the severe flooding in China’s Shanxi province.

Houses collapsed and landslides were triggered by the torrential rain which kept pounding over 65 districts and cities in the province.

The rainfall has also affected the rescue efforts and officials are having trouble reaching the areas that require help.

Rescuers have told people to carry their children on their shoulders. According to state-controlled hivemind Global Times, four police officials have also been killed in landslides.

Local state-controlled media reports that over 16,000 houses have collapsed with over 100,000 people moved to nearby shelters.

Experts fear the floods may be worse than the Henan ones of three months ago, where 300 people had died.

Shanxi’s provincial capital saw an average rainfall of over 183mm. This being the highest ever recorded in the provincial capital in October since 1981.

China had buffed its coal-powered electricity generation to battle the severe outages. The operations have now been suspended as rain continues to batter the province.

Shanxi is a major Chinese coal producing province, and it produced over 28% of China’s fuel supply this year alone.

Authorities have been forced to suspend over 400 coal and non-coal producing mines.

The power crisis in China is now expected to worsen as it was heavily dependent on its backup plan, aka coal.

Although, some experts fear that in order to combat the shortage, China may buff up its coal production even further.

Earlier this year, Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping vowed to stop funding coal-powered projects in other countries. His promise was hailed by climate “activists” in China and the state-controlled Chinese media.

His promise has been criticized by many as just being mere words, as China continues to propel its domestic coal production.