China highway collapse: Death toll rises to over 40
May 2, 2024
Chinese state media reported 48 people were killed when a section of a highway collapsed. Search efforts are underway despite bad weather a day after part of a road fell in China's Guangdong province.
Rescuers work at the site of a road cave-in on a section of the Meizhou-Dabu ExpresswayImage: VCG/IMAGO
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The death toll from a highway collapse in China's Guangdong province climbed to 48 people, state media said on Thursday, as rescue efforts continued.
Thirty people were wounded in the incident.
A section of the Meizhou-Dabu Expressway collapsed on Wednesday at 2:10 a.m. local time, triggered by heavy rain.
The 17.9-meter-long (58.7-foot) stretch of collapsed road caused 23 vehicles to plummet down the steep slope below, according to the Meizhou city government.
"As of 5:30 a.m. on (Thursday)... 36 people have died, and 30 people have been injured," the state Xinhua news agency said, adding that the injuries were not life-threatening.
Heavy rain, floods swamp south China
China's Guangdong province is struggling to deal with heavy rainfall and the resulting landslides. At least four people have already died, and tens of thousands have been evacuated.
Image: AFP/Getty Images
Bridge over troubled waters
Days of heavy rain have swelled rivers and caused severe flooding across large parts of Guangdong province. On Tuesday, the Chinese government issued the highest storm warning for the affected area. The heavy rainfall began last week and is expected to continue over the next few days.
Image: Tingshu Wang/REUTERS
Getting to safety
Tens of thousands of residents have evacuated the city of Qingyuan, north of Hong Kong, leaving their homes by boat and helicopter. In total, more than 110,000 people across the province were evacuated to safety. At least four have died and rescue workers are searching for 11 missing people, state news agency Xinhua reported.
Image: AFP/Getty Images
Silent witness
Only one statue protrudes from the water in a flooded park in Qingyuan. Abundant rain is not uncommon in the region, but this year the rainfall was much heavier and began earlier in the season. In some places, measurements showed two to three times more rain than usual for this time of year.
Image: AFP/Getty Images
'Intensifying climate change' to blame
Yin Zhijie, the chief hydrology forecaster at China's Water Resources Ministry, said "intensifying climate change" had raised the likelihood of the kind of heavy rain not typically seen until June or July. The downpour has also triggered landslides, injuring at least six people in the city of Jiangwan on Sunday.
Image: Lu Hanxin/Xinhua/picture alliance
'Once a century' floods
Entire districts of Qingyuan, which lies on a branch of the Bei River, are under water. State media said the severe flooding was of the sort only "seen around once a century." Human-caused climate change means extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more intense. China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Image: AFP/Getty Images
Path of destruction
This cyclist took a moment to survey the destruction caused by the storm in Qingyuan. Flooding isn't the only problem: the Chinese weather service has warned of thunderstorms and strong winds in the coastal regions of the South China Sea in the coming days.
Image: picture alliance/CFOTO
Catastrophe in China's economic hub
It's not just Qingyuan: the wider Pearl River estuary is home to major cities such as Hong Kong and Shenzhen, where "heavy to very heavy rainfall" was recorded on Tuesday. The Pearl River Delta is China's economic hub — with around 127 million inhabitants, it's one of the most densely populated regions in the country.
Image: CNS/AFP/Getty Images
Gloomy forecast
According to climate experts, the number of flooding events caused by rainfall and rising sea levels in China will increase significantly in the future, especially in the country's south. China has already been increasingly hit by severe flooding, devastating droughts and record heat waves in recent years.
Image: AFP/Getty Images
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How are rescue efforts going after the highway collapsed?
President Xi Jinping called on officials to "go all-out in on-site rescue work and treatment of the injured, and arrange for the management of risks and hidden dangers in a timely manner", state broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday.
The search operation has been complicated by steady rain, gravel and soil coming down at the accident site, putting rescue workers at risl, a fire department official told Chinese media.
CCTV footage showed excavators digging through the muddy hillside below the collapsed road as a crane lifted burnt and wrecked vehicles onto a lorry.
CCTV reported that around 500 people have been deployed to support the rescue efforts.
The provincial government has "mobilized elite specialized forces and gone all out to carry out... search and rescue", Xinhua reported.
The southern province of Guangdong has witnessed a series of disasters due to extreme weather conditions in recent weeks.
Heavy rains trigger deadly flooding in China's Guangdong
