China's going through a pretty wild ride with the weather right now, guys. They're dealing with some serious rain and flooding after Typhoon Gaemi came through. Over the weekend, Hunan province got absolutely drenched with more than 600mm of rain—that's like over two feet in just a couple of days! This crazy weather has forced thousands of people to leave their homes because it's just too wet and dangerous to stay.
This storm has been so intense that it's made some river walls, called dykes, totally give out. There have been three big ones that broke already, with the newest one happening on Monday afternoon. The Juan River in Xiangtan broke and now over 4,000 people have had to get out of there because the water's rising so fast.
China's like, "Okay, we need to get serious about this," so they've started a level four emergency plan for the floods in Guizhou and Yunnan provinces. They're expecting some real heavy rainstorms and a lot of rivers to overflow, especially in the smaller ones. They're worried about cities getting really soggy too.
The water's gotten so high that it's almost covering the bottom parts of trees and flooding out the first floors of houses. It's a mess! And it's not just stuff getting ruined—it's also really sad because 15 people lost their lives in a landslide in Hengyang city on Sunday morning. A bunch of other folks got hurt too.
So now, 15 provinces are on high alert, and the weather guys are telling everyone to keep an eye on the skies. They're trying to keep more bad stuff from happening and help out the people who've been hit the hardest by this wet monster of a storm. Stay safe, China!