Swathes of China are on high alert for flash floods and landslides as unrelenting rain triggered deadly disasters and forced evacuations in multiple provinces. The torrential downpours, part of the annual “Plum Rains” season, have swept from the southwest through central China and up to the northeast, prompting red alerts in Sichuan, Gansu and Liaoning provinces. In Henan province’s Taiping town, rescue workers recovered five bodies and were searching for three missing people after a nearby river burst its banks, unleashing a sudden flash flood. More than 1,000 emergency personnel have been deployed to assist residents, state media reported. Vice premier Zhang Guoqing urged officials in Hebei to act urgently to protect lives as the rain continued. In neighbouring Gansu province, two people died when heavy rains caused a landslide at a construction site. Dramatic scenes unfolded in Guangxi, where video footage showed a five-storey building under construction collapsing into the Lengshui river as the ground beneath it gave way in waterlogged soil. The river saw its worst flooding since at least 2005, local media reported. In Guangxi’s Pingliu village, landslides destroyed two houses and forced the evacuation of 21 people.

Full report : China’s north and west on alert after sweeping rains trigger deadly floods.