30 dead, dozens missing after torrential rain in central China

Torrential rains in China have killed at least 30 people and left dozens more missing, state media said on Thursday, as the country grinds through another summer of extreme weather.

Confirmation of the deaths came the same day that weather authorities said July was China’s hottest month since records began six decades ago.

China is the world’s biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases that scientists say are driving climate change and making extreme weather more frequent and intense.

Heatwaves this summer have scorched parts of northern China, while heavy rain has triggered floods and landslides in central and southern areas.

This week’s downpours were triggered by Typhoon Gaemi, which moved on from the Philippines and Taiwan to make landfall in eastern China a week ago, with hilly, landlocked Hunan province hit particularly hard.

More than 11,000 people were evacuated from the city of Zixing after some areas endured record rainfall of 25 inches in just 24 hours, state news agency Xinhua said on Tuesday.

Many roads connecting townships in the Zixing area were temporarily cut off, which also affected the power supply and communications infrastructure.

State broadcaster CCTV said on Thursday the disruption was mostly over.

"Initial findings show that there have been 30 deaths and 35 are missing,” the report said, adding that search and rescue efforts were still ongoing. Xinhua said on Tuesday four people had been killed and three people were missing in Zixing. Three people were killed in Hunan’s Yongxing county, Xinhua also said on Tuesday, while a landslide on Sunday killed 15 people elsewhere in the province.

Last month was "the hottest July since complete observations began in 1961, and the hottest single month in the history of observation”, the national weather office said on Thursday.

It said the average July air temperature in China was 23.21 degrees Celsius, exceeding the previous record of 23.17C in 2017.

The mean temperature in every province was also "higher than the average for previous years”, with the southwestern provinces of Guizhou and Yunnan logging their highest averages, the weather office said.