Typhoon Narra Floods Force 54,000 Evacuations in China as Second Storm Bears Down

Floodwater hit rooftops and power lines in Chongzuo, a city in China's Guangxi region, this week as Typhoon Narra dumped record rainfall on the country's south. Water levels there topped a record set in 2008, according to The Guardian and Channel NewsAsia, forcing authorities to evacuate more than 15,000 people from the city alone.

Across Guangxi, China relocated a total of 54,000 people, state broadcaster CCTV reported, according to multiple outlets including the Guardian and The Straits Times. Of those, 8,087 were moved into emergency shelters, The Straits Times reported. Fangchenggang, also in Guangxi, recorded 404.9 millimeters (15.9 inches) of rainfall, according to Anadolu Agency, citing China's Global Times, prompting rescue crews to use inflatable boats to pull residents out of Ningming county.

China's disaster authorities activated a Level 4 national relief response and raised the national weather emergency alert to Level 3, Anadolu Agency reported. By Tuesday, China's meteorological authorities upgraded the broader typhoon alert further, from yellow to orange, the second-highest tier in the country's four-level system, according to Xinhua as carried by The Star (Malaysia).

Narra made landfall as a tropical storm in China's Hainan province Tuesday evening after stalling for days over the Beibu Gulf, also known as the Gulf of Tonkin, according to the Guardian. The storm was the 19th typhoon of the western Pacific season this year, Anadolu Agency reported, part of what it described as an unusually active season with 21 typhoons formed so far, nine above the historical average.

Vietnam and Taiwan also hit

The flooding wasn't confined to China. In northern Vietnam, Narra's rains killed one person and displaced more than 4,300 households, according to The Straits Times. The provinces of Lang Son and Cao Bang received between 236mm and 300mm of rain in a single 24-hour span. Floods also swamped Quang Ninh province, home to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Ha Long Bay, disrupting tourism and fishing. More than 10,000 hectares of rice and other crops were destroyed, and nearly 55,000 households lost power.

The storm's reach extended into China's space program. Beijing postponed the launch of its uncrewed Chang'e-7 lunar mission, which had been expected as early as August 24 from Hainan's Wenchang Space Launch Site, The Straits Times reported. Chinese officials said the spacecraft did not "meet launch conditions." Thailand's National Astronomical Research Institute, which has a payload on the mission, confirmed the typhoon caused the delay.

Meanwhile, Taiwan is dealing with a separate weather system. The island's government reported one person dead and four missing after a tropical depression dumped nearly a metre (about 3.3 feet) of rain on Kaohsiung over three days, from Sunday to Tuesday, according to the Guardian. Taiwanese officials said that rainfall total exceeded what fell during 2009's Typhoon Morakot, which killed roughly 700 people and caused up to $3 billion in damage.

Second typhoon closing in

A second storm, Typhoon Saudel, is now approaching. As of Tuesday, Saudel sat roughly 920 km east of Taipei, according to Xinhua's report via The Star. China's National Meteorological Centre expects it to enter the East China Sea Wednesday morning before making landfall along the coast between central Zhejiang and central Fujian. Japan's weather agency has warned of destructive winds and high seas as Saudel nears Okinawa prefecture. Taiwan's Central Weather Administration said Saudel is expected to pass north of the island late Thursday into Friday, weakening as it goes, though it cautioned there's uncertainty about the storm's rainfall timing and severity.

A third system, Typhoon Gaenari, already made landfall near Quanzhou in Fujian on Monday, according to The Star, prompting China's Water Resources Ministry to activate a Level-IV flood emergency response there.

Censorship during an earlier storm

Breitbart's coverage centers on a separate, earlier storm, Typhoon Dolphin, which struck Zhejiang province on August 9 and pushed into central China's Hubei and Henan provinces. That reporting, drawing on Reuters and China's Global Times, detailed how China's Ministry of Public Security filed 15 cases against "netizens" it accused of fabricating flood-related misinformation using AI, including a Shenzhen man accused of doctoring official typhoon safety notices. Breitbart frames this as Communist Party censors working "furiously" to suppress information during a disaster. China's own state media provided the claim that specific individuals doctored official notices with AI-generated content, though this has not been independently verified by outside reporting in these sources. Whether the censorship targeted only fabricated content or swept up legitimate criticism remains unclear from available reporting.

The current flooding tied to Narra is a separate, more recent event from Dolphin, and none of the sources covering Narra's flooding report similar censorship actions.

With Saudel expected to make landfall in Fujian late Thursday or early Friday, and Narra's floodwaters still receding across Guangxi, many of the 54,000 relocated residents may face difficulty returning home before the next storm's rain arrives. China's National Meteorological Centre has not said when evacuation orders for high-risk areas will be lifted.