Rescuers rode rubber rafts to save trapped residents while maritime authorities made rapid navigational adjustments amid flooding in southwest China's Chongqing, through which the Yangtze River flows.
Intense downpours hit 12 counties and districts in the municipality on Thursday and Friday.
On Friday afternoon, the upper Yangtze River in Chongqing's Banan District, situated in the Sichuan Basin, witnessed this year's first major flood peak with water levels surpassing 180 meters. To ensure the safety of vessel navigation, the Chongqing Maritime Bureau issued a warning and implemented navigation restrictions in certain sections of the Yangtze River.
Authorities also warned that some rivers in the southeastern and northeastern regions of the municipality may see water rising above alert levels in the following days.
As of 15:00 on Friday, the water level in the Yangtze River's Fuling section in Chongqing reached 167 meters. To safeguard the passage of ships, the waterway authorities leveraged real-time monitoring and scheduling to adjust over 200 navigation markers in response to the changing water levels.
On Thursday, a sudden downpour struck Changshou District, a largely scenic area along the Yangtze's route northeast of Chongqing's main urban area, causing the inundation of the first floors of many low-lying residential buildings. Professional rescue teams were mobilized to evacuate and relocate the trapped residents.
"The water looked so deep, and I was really panicked when I was trapped," said local resident Chen Defen.
In total, over 1,200 people from about 530 households were relocated in the district's Yuntai Town on Thursday. The rainfall has since subsided and floodwaters have receded, allowing the affected residents to resume life as normal.
Thursday also saw the relentless downpours cause rapidly rising water levels in the rivers of Chongqing's Kaizhou District in the municipality's far northeast, leading to the inundation of part of the Sanhe community in Zhonghe Town. Rescue teams were dispatched to save residents stuck in the submerged communities and relocate them to save areas. Currently, the rainfall in Kaizhou District has stopped and the residents have gradually returned to their homes.
Affected by the persistent heavy rainfall, 15 medium and small rivers in Chongqing's Fengjie County have experienced water level swelling of one to four meters, with multiple rivers exceeding warning levels. In response, the county on Thursday opened the dual sluice gates of a dam, discharging floodwaters at a rate of 900 cubic meters per second.
Residents rescued, river navigation adjusted as rainstorms batter China's Chongqing
Residents rescued, river navigation adjusted as rainstorms batter China's Chongqing
China has maintained robust growth momentum in its renewable energy development since the beginning of 2024, with its total installed green energy capacity exceeding 1.6 billion kilowatts, as new breakthroughs are achieved continuously to provide strong impetus for green development.
A million-kilowatt offshore photovoltaic project has recently commenced construction in the Bohai Sea. Over a dozen of construction vessels are laying more than two million solar panels across some 1,333 hectares on the sea surface.
Upon completion, the solar panels will be generating an estimated 1.78 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, while the space underneath will be utilized for aquaculture, which is expected to bring in an annual income of over 27 million yuan (about 3.77 million U.S. dollars).
Meanwhile, the construction of the world highest wind power generation and energy storage project started on July 31 on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which has an average altitude of 5,000 meters.
With a total installed capacity of 100 megawatts, the project, located in Nagqu City of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, will be able to generate around 237 million kilowatt-hours of electricity every year upon its completion, providing a reliable source for green energy supply in northern Xizang.
At the same time, in the first six months of this year, renewable energy power generation investment accounted for more than 70 percent of the power investment from key surveyed enterprises nationwide.
"As of the end of June this year, the installed capacity of renewable energy power reached 1.65 billion kilowatts, accounting for 53.8 percent of China's total installed power generation capacity, an increase of 4.7 percentage points compared with the same period of last year. The power generation structure has been continuously optimized," said Yang Kun, executive vice president of the China Electricity Council.
As the scale of renewable energy continues to expand, new technologies and new models have kept emerging, and the pace of construction of China's new power system has accelerated significantly.
In north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the country's largest integrated wind-solar-storage demonstration project has recently been connected to the grid. With the help of integrated intelligent regulation technology, it can effectively solve the problems of large fluctuations and strong intermittency in new energy resources.
At the same time, five provinces and autonomous regions in southern China have adopted the AI-based load forecasting system developed by the China Southern Power Grid, which utilizes over 30 different AI algorithms to calculate the electricity load conditions for the next 10 days in the regions, providing precise forecasts of power dispatching.
"AI is over 10 times more efficient than traditional load forecasting based on human experience. Therefore we can arrange resources, including renewable energy and pumped storage, in an earlier and more proactively manner," said Li Peng, an official from the power distribution and management center under the China Southern Power Grid.
In the first half of 2024, over 80 percent of the increase in power generation nationwide came from renewable energy sources.
The proportion of renewable energy power generation in China has increased from 32 percent recorded at the end of 2023 to 35.1 percent at present.
According to the National Energy Administration, China will make further efforts to ensure complementary and coordinated development of multiple renewable resources, with equal emphasis on onshore and offshore power, to speed up the green and low-carbon transformation of energy and power generation.
China makes continuous breakthroughs in developing renewable energy
