SHANGHAI: Flooding in China’s southwest has driven more than 80,000 people from their homes, state media said on Wednesday (Jun 25), as a collapsed bridge forced the dramatic rescue of a truck driver left dangling over the edge.
China is enduring a summer of extreme weather, with heat waves scorching wide swaths of the country while rainstorms pummel other regions.
Around 80,900 people had been evacuated by Tuesday afternoon in the southwestern province of Guizhou, state news agency Xinhua reported.
In Rongjiang county, a football field was “submerged under 3m of water”, the news agency said.
Footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed severe flooding had inundated villages and collapsed a bridge in one mountainous area of the province.
Rescuers pushed boats carrying residents through murky, knee-high water and children waited in a kindergarten as emergency personnel approached them, the footage showed.
“The water rose very quickly,” resident Long Tian told Xinhua.
“I stayed on the third floor waiting for rescue. By the afternoon, I had been transferred to safety.”
A team was also seen preparing a drone to deliver supplies, including rice, to flood victims.
And in a video circulated by local media, truck driver You Guochun recounted his harrowing rescue after he ended up perched over the edge of a broken bridge segment.
