Typhoon Haikui has inundated southern China with heavy rainfall. Over the course of seven consecutive days, this slow-moving weather system has unleashed relentless downpours upon the region, resulting in flooding in low-lying areas, blocked roads, and residents being stranded.
In rural Bobai county — in China’s Guangxi region — rescuers on assault boats have been working diligently since Sunday night to evacuate stranded residents from homes submerged in water over 2 meters (6.6 feet) deep, reported state media on Monday.
The heavy rain is expected to persist in Guangxi over the next few days, which can exacerbate the flooding situation further.

Haikui
Typhoon Haikui, which initially made landfall in China’s Fujian province on September 5, has since weakened to a tropical storm.

However, the storm’s residual circulation continues to wreak havoc in southern China. The populous city of Shenzhen, as per a Reuters report, has experienced its heaviest rainfall since record-keeping began in 1952. Neighbouring Hong Kong also endured its worst storm in 140 years.

Alarm bells
Scientists have reportedly raised concerns of an increased risk of disasters, as typhoons hitting China continue to intensify and their paths grow more complex.
This threat, as per them, extends to coastal cities like Shenzhen, which regularly brave tropical cyclones and already have robust flood defence systems in place.

Shao Sun, a climatologist at the University of California, Irvine, explained, “Typhoons that move far inland affect regions historically less exposed to heavy rainfall and strong wind, often with lower disaster resilience, leading to more severe losses.”

“In this case of Shenzhen, the disaster was mainly due to the slow westward movement of Haikui’s residual circulation, which nearly stagnated in its spatial position from the afternoon of Sept. 7 to the early hours of Sept. 8, and a “train effect” of heavy rainfall occurred, causing the event to exceed its expected intensity,” he added.

“Train effect” refers to a cumulative effect where successive convective cloud systems passed over the area, causing a significant accumulation o