TheNanfang » drainage system

[Photos] Cars Float Away in Severe Flooding in Beijing

Charles Liu — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 05:31:47 +0000

After a heavy rainfall in Beijing, flooding in the city was so severe that motorist abandoned their cars under a railway bridge, reports Yangcheng Evening Report.

On Tiancun East Road in Haidian District, 18 cars were left abandoned in two meter high flooding yesterday (July 16) at around 7pm. The drivers said when they couldn’t drive through the water-covered area, they stopped there. Twenty minutes later, the entire underpass was flooded.

Check out the photos below.

Photos: Golden Lamb Network of the Yangcheng Evening Report

Guangzhou’s RMB 400 Million Infrastructure Upgrade Goes Down the Drain

Natalie Wang — Thu, 26 Jun 2014 00:55:52 +0000

A car was submerged and trapped by floods in the middle of the road in Guangzhou.

The Guangzhou government is under fire after some districts in the city were unable to handle torrential downpours despite a RMB 400 million upgrade to the city’s drainage systems, leaving the city’s transportation system partially paralyzed after this week’s heavy rainfall, New Express Daily reported.

[Photos] Guangzhou Flooded from Heavy Rainfall

Many trains from Guangzhou to Changsha were operating under reduced speeds while 26 departures were suspended on June 24 after rainstorms pelted the city since Sunday. The city issued a red alert for torrential rains on June 23. In the city’s Haizhu District, a rainfall of 176.2mm was recorded, the highest in the city.

Water seeps into a school’s auditorium.

The Baiyunshan area around the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and the Nanhu Street area in Haizhu District were both heavily flooded even though the local water bureau had pumped in RMB 11.69 million to upgrade the underground sewer system in 2011. Construction was completed in October 2012.

According to the bureau, the drainage problem on Congyun Road, South Road and Jiade Bus Station around the university was solved after the project. However, many buildings on the university campus were flooded by water after the Sunday rainfall, the report said.

The same thing happened to Nanhua Street in Haizhu District after the government allocated RMB 3.1 million to fix the sewer system. After last weekend’s rainstorm, the clogged waters reached knee-high level in some low-lying areas, the report said.

All told, Guangzhou has spent a total of RMB 400 million on improving its drainage system in the last three years, but images of the city after the rain showed cars, buses, parking lots and residents mired in deep water.

Taiwan scholar You Yingtai famously proposed for a country to be judged as developed or not by its drainage system. The same can go for a city. If a city is flooded with standing water and the shop’s tea pot is floating in the middle of the road and used for catching fish, this is probably not a developing city.

Here, one’s trousers are wet without being muddy; road traffic is slow but not at a standstill. By this measure, Guangzhou, an export-driven powerhouse, is still a developing city, trying to to wade out of the flood waters.

Foshan’s drainage system ‘insufficient’

Katei Wang — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 23:00:14 +0000

The drainage system of Beijing came under fire in July this year after heavy rains caused floods that killed an estimated 77 people.

If the nation’s capital has an incomplete drainage system then what does this mean for less developed cities?

On August 21 and 22, Foshan was hit by 30-minute rainstorms, Southern Metropolis Daily reports. They were two of several storms this summer that turned Foshan into an “underwater city.” This has raised questions about the suitability of the city’s drainage system.

The city’s drainage system is only able to bear a maximum of 50mm per hour of rainfall. Even Nanhai District, the city’s most developed area saw businesses affected by the drenched streets this summer.

The government has invested more than 50 million RMB in improving drainage systems in Guangdong this year, Foshan is still considerably far behind the province’s big metropolises.

Although not a major metropolis, Foshan is far from a backwater, attracting expats with its European Culture Festival in May this year.