Climate Change: Several killed as mountain collapses in China’s Gansu province

LANZHOU, (ANI): Nine people were killed and seven others were injured after a mountain collapsed in northwest China’s Gansu Province on Saturday. The incident took place at 11.15 a.m. in Jingtai County of Baiyin City, Xinhua reported, citing the local authorities.

Besides the nine deaths and seven injured, another person was found missing after the incident. Authorities said that the search operation and rescue efforts are underway. Earlier, in a similar accident last week, six people were killed and 12 were reported missing after heavy rainstorms triggered mountain torrents in South-West China’s Sichuan province.

According to Xinhua, the local authorities said that the incident took place at 7 a.m. after the water levels of some rivers rose sharply, and floods mixed with floating objects, mud, sand and stones were formed. In another catastrophic incident recently, eight people were killed after a decorative building structure fell from a height of about 12 meters on Saturday in North China’s Hebei Province.

The incident happened during a rainstorm in Luquan District of Shijiazhuang, the capital city of Hebei when nine people sheltering from the rain were hit by the fallen structure. Since the onset of rainy season in May in the country, rainstorms have caused severe flooding and landslides. Southern China witnessed a number of killings, collapsed houses and a large number of people have been displaced.

The torrential rains and rain-induced floods since May 28 have wreaked havoc in 80 counties of the province. China also faced economic losses into billions of yuan. The country’s Ministry of Emergency Management said that China’s direct economic losses from natural disasters amounted to 88.81 billion yuan, about USD 13.13 billion, in the first half of 2022.

From January to June, floods and hailstorms were the major natural disasters in China, while droughts, freezing weather, earthquakes, snow disasters, and forest and grassland fires also occurred to varying degrees, Shen Zhanli, spokesperson for the ministry, told a press conference.

Nearly 39.14 million people were affected by natural disasters during the period, with 178 dead or missing and 1.28 million residents relocated.

More than 18,000 houses collapsed and 3.62 million hectares of cropland were damaged by natural disasters, Shen said. China has a four-tier, colour-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe warning, followed by orange, yellow and blue. In order to tackle heavy rains, China upgraded its flood control emergency response to level II. (ANI)