China Scrambles to Evacuate Nearly a Million People as Monsoon Floods Batter the Country — And a Super Typhoon Looms Next

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Rain Alerts Span Half the Country

China's national weather agency kept its second-highest rainstorm warning in place on Monday, covering a wide arc of the country from Shaanxi in the northwest to Guangdong in the south. Forecasters singled out Shaanxi, Chongqing, Guizhou and Guangxi as areas facing the greatest risk.

In Shaanxi, local meteorologists raised the regional storm alert further, cautioning that waterlogging and flash floods were likely. Provincial authorities have moved nearly 88,000 people out of harm's way since July 30.

Sichuan Basin Hit Hardest

The northern Sichuan Basin has taken the brunt of the rainfall. State broadcaster CCTV reported eight separate landslides and other geological hazards in the cities of Yibin, Ziyang, Meishan and Guangyuan.

Sichuan's provincial government evacuated another 40,249 residents across 20 cities on Monday as a precaution. No deaths have been reported from this latest wave of flooding. But the cumulative toll on daily life is staggering: since the flood season began in mid-July, more than 922,000 people have now been relocated in the province, according to CCTV.

Nationally, the Ministry of Natural Resources said dozens of rivers have breached warning levels, and it issued a red alert — the most severe category — for flash flooding in central Chongqing.

More Rain, and a Typhoon, on the Way

Forecasters expect the danger to spread rather than ease. In Yunnan province, authorities are bracing for days of continuous heavy rain from Monday through Thursday, with elevated risks of flash floods, landslides and river flooding.

Meanwhile, China's eastern seaboard faces a separate threat. Typhoon Dolphin, one of the strongest storms of the 2026 Pacific season, is tracking toward the coast and is expected to bring wind and rain to Fujian and Zhejiang from Thursday into the weekend. China's Ministry of Water Resources has said the typhoon could make landfall and affect the country between August 1 and 15, with significant river-level rises forecast across the Pearl, Yangtze and Yellow river basins. Hong Kong's Observatory has also been monitoring the storm's track closely, though its precise path remained uncertain as of late last week.

Background: A Flood Season With a History of Cover-Ups

Beijing has faced this kind of crisis before — and its handling of it has drawn sustained criticism. The clearest example remains the 2021 floods in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province, where record rainfall drowned commuters trapped in a flooded subway line and swept away others in underground garages and tunnels.

An official investigation later found that local officials had repeatedly underreported the death toll for over a week, initially citing fewer than 100 fatalities before the confirmed number rose to nearly 400. Central authorities eventually punished dozens of local officials for what the report itself described as deliberate concealment.

The pattern has not stopped there. Chinese citizens marking anniversaries of the disaster have faced continued censorship of commemorations, according to independent monitoring of Chinese state media directives. A leaked 2026 media guideline instructed outlets to shift coverage away from the death toll and toward "post-disaster recovery" instead — a sign, critics say, that the ruling Communist Party remains more concerned with managing public perception than with transparent accountability, even five years on.

This history matters for how the current floods should be read. When Chinese state broadcasters report "no casualties" during an active disaster, independent observers note that such early figures have, in the past, proven unreliable until confirmed by outside reporting or later admissions from Beijing itself.

Outlook

For now, the immediate priority for Chinese authorities is logistical: moving people out of flood paths before rivers and hillsides give way. The approaching typhoon adds a second front to an already stretched emergency response, with the coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang next in line for severe weather.

Whether this flood season matches the death tolls of past disasters, such as 2020 or 2021, will depend heavily on evacuation speed — and on whether local officials report the human cost accurately as the situation develops.

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Sources

1. Reuters — China evacuates residents as heavy rains hit northwest, southwest: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/china-evacuates-residents-heavy-rains-hit-northwest-southwest-2026-08-03/
2. China Daily / Xinhua (state media, cited for the Ministry of Water Resources' own typhoon forecast) — Typhoon Dolphin may make landfall in China in first half of August: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202608/01/WS6a6d360ba310986e2b468788.html
3. South China Morning Post — Super Typhoon Dolphin set to bring very hot weather to Hong Kong next week: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3362511/super-typhoon-dolphin-set-bring-very-hot-weather-hong-kong-next-week
4. CNN — Chinese officials punished for covering up true scale of deadly Henan floods: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/24/china/china-floods-cover-up-intl-hnk-mic
5. China Digital Times — "Sometimes Forgetting Is as Terrible as the Disaster." Censored Reflections on the Deadly Zhengzhou Floods, Five Years On: https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2026/07/translations-sometimes-forgetting-is-as-terrible-as-the-disaster-censored-reflections-on-the-deadly-zhengzhou-floods-five-years-on/

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