China’s “Hawaii” is under water due to tropical storm “Trami” pouring record rainfall

BEIJING. Southern China’s Hainan province, known as the “Hawaii” of southern China, is experiencing heavy rainfall for a third day as another tropical cyclone transits, leaving the island semi-flooded in a year of record wet weather.

Cities in Hainan, including Sanya, known for its palm trees, seaside hotels and sandy beaches, remained inundated on October 29 by Tropical Storm Trami in the south. On October 28, Sanya received 294.9 mm of rain in 24 hours, the most for any day in October since 2000.

Trami came ashore in central Vietnam Oct. 27 after a slow passage through the South China Sea from the Philippines, killing at least 125 people and leaving 28 missing.

Although Hainan did not take a direct hit from Trami, Chinese authorities took no chances, recalling all fishing vessels and evacuating more than 50,000 people.

In 2024, the entire eastern coastline of China experienced extreme weather events starting from strong passage of super typhoon Yagi through Hainan in September to the strongest tropical cyclone to hit Shanghai since 1949.

Scientists warn that in the near future there will be even more intense weather caused by climate change.

“In October, the country’s average rainfall was 6.3 percent higher than the same period in previous years,” Dr. Jia Xiaolong, a senior official at the National Climate Center, said at a press conference on Oct. 29.

Last week, water levels along China’s Bohai Sea inexplicably rose to 160 cm in a matter of hours, despite the absence of any wind, leading to high tides that flooded streets in Tianjin and many cities in the northern provinces of Hebei and Liaoning.

“It’s hard to imagine how much energy was needed to push such a large area of ​​seawater into one place,” Mr. Fu Sifu, an official with the National Center for Marine Environmental Prediction, told the state-run Xinhua News Agency at the time. .

China has a history of flooding, but its prevention infrastructure and emergency response planning are under increasing pressure as record rains inundate densely populated cities, destroy crops and undermine the local economy.

Amid natural disaster relief this summer, authorities must provide billions of dollars in additional funding to support reconstruction in many regions from southern to northeastern China.

In July, the country suffered 76.9 billion yuan (S$14.3 billion) in economic losses from natural disasters, with 88 percent of those losses caused by torrential rains and floods from Typhoon Gemi, the highest July figure since 2021. Reuters