Typhoon Nesat triggers flooding in SW China

Typhoon Nesat continued to wreak havoc in southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Sunday, two days after making landfall on the southernmost island province of Hainan. Water from heavy downpours brought by Nesat has entered major river courses in the region, where more than 2 million people have been affected by the typhoon. The regional flood control and drought relief headquarters said the water levels of five rivers in the region had exceeded danger marks by Sunday morning. In the city of Qinzhou, the Qinjiang River edged over an embankment that protects a riverside park, submerging roads and bushes. The headquarters warned that flooding is expected to crest on Monday morning, putting the water level at 1.2 meters above the danger mark in Qinzhou. In the city of Beihai, rainfall and lightning over the past two days have severely damaged airport facilities. Nesat, the strongest typhoon to hit the region since 2005, battered 24 counties in Guangxi, including the regional capital Nanning, forcing the evacuation of 132,200 people, the regional civil affairs department said in a press release. The regional government has increased its estimate of Nesat-inflicted economic losses to 1.4 billion yuan (219 million U.S. dollars), as thousands of houses were toppled, and 257,900 hectares of farmland were damaged.