56 Dead, 22 Missing As Rains Swamp S. China; Hydropower Cuts, +/- $4 Billion Damage
Severe flooding across southern China has forced the world’s largest power plant to slash capacity on Tuesday, delayed grain on barges and damaged farms along the Yangtze River, as the death toll rose to 56 and economic costs hit almost $4 billion. Heavy rainfall, mudslides and hail caused by the annual rainy season have killed 56 people and 22 people were missing across 11 provinces and regions as of Tuesday morning, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
More than 750,000 hectares (1.85 million acres) of crops have been damaged and direct economic losses totalled more than 25.3 billion yuan ($3.72 billion), it said. The government said it had disbursed 700 million yuan ($103 million) in emergency aid to four flood-hit provinces – Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan and Guizhou.
Rain in the southern provinces is expected to ease in the coming days, but weather forecasters predict downpours will move to the southwestern province of Sichuan.
In what analysts said was a move unprecedented in its scale, the Three Gorges and Gezhouba, two of China’s top hydropower plants, closed as much as two-thirds of their capacity to avert flooding further downstream on the Yangtze River. The move stoked concerns about electricity supplies from China’s second-largest power source as a heatwave continued to scorch northern parts of the country, raising the export prices of coal, the fuel the country uses to produce most of its power.
EDIT
https://thewire.in/154553/much-rain-chinas-floods-roil-hydropower-corn-supplies/
