On the night of August 7 to 8, 2025, in Yuzhong County, Gansu Province, and surrounding areas, torrential rains triggered sudden and extremely destructive floods. The heaviest rainfall fell in the southern part of the county, in the Xinlongshan area, where a record eight point six inches of rain fell, unprecedented for the region. The floodwaters swept away everything in their path, carrying huge amounts of mud, sand, and debris onto the roads.
An 84-year-old local resident said, “In all my life, I have never seen such heavy rain. Rocks the size of a bed were tumbling down from the river. I didn’t sleep all night in my room, too scared to close my eyes.”
More than four thousand people and over one thousand three hundred households in several villages of the county were cut off from the outside world. In the village of Maliantan, a landslide occurred, leaving three people missing. As of August tenth, the disaster had claimed a total of fifteen lives, with twenty-eight people still listed as missing.
In Guangdong Province, heavy rains continued on August 6th. One of the affected sites was the recently opened Beijiang Water Sports Center in Qingyuan, built at a cost of more than four million U.S. dollars. The center opened on August 2nd but was struck by the storm just three days later: floodwaters swept away parts of the facility, including the water obstacle course and other attractions in the water park. Staff reported that, although the center had passed safety inspections before opening, it was not designed to withstand such a powerful flood.
On August 7, a red rainstorm warning was issued in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, just a few days after an orange drought warning had been in effect. In some districts of the city, more than four inches of rainfall were recorded, causing factories, offices, schools, transportation, and outdoor events to be suspended. The heavy rain created a real threat to people’s lives: pedestrians were swept away by rushing waters, and cars became stranded. One driver reported being trapped in a tunnel, where, within ten minutes, the water nearly reached his car windows, completely blocking all traffic. Many residents abandoned their vehicles and used ladders to escape from the flooded tunnel.
Extreme precipitation affected nearly half of China, from the Sichuan Basin to the Huanghuai region. The chief meteorologist of the Central Meteorological Observatory noted a characteristic feature of this year’s rainfall: it is unevenly distributed, but in certain locations, it falls with extraordinary intensity.
Such anomalously intense rainfall is explained by record ocean warming and increased atmospheric moisture, but also by a factor that is still largely overlooked in predictive models: the presence of micro- and nanoplastics in the atmosphere. More details on this can be found in the video “From Brain Damage to Infertility: How Nanoplastic Is Stealing Your Future.”
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