© XinhuaThe death toll from heavy rain in southwest China’s Chongqing municipality has risen to six, according to local authorities.
Six people deaths had been recorded as a result of heavy rainfall in Chongqing's Dianjiang county as of Thursday. State broadcaster CCTV said four people had been killed by "geological disasters" and the other two had drowned.
The rainfall in Dianjiang reached a record single-day high of 269.2mm (10.6 inches), affecting more than 40,000 people.
CCTV said it had damaged nearly 1,800 hectares (4,448 acres) of crops, and caused direct economic losses of around 82 million yuan (US$11.3 million).
On Thursday the Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters in Chongqing raised the flood emergency response to Level 3 for 14 districts and counties and the geological disaster alert to Level 3 for nine areas. The alerts are part of a four-tier system in which Level 1 is the most severe.
"As flood preparedness and response enter a critical period, we should strengthen warnings and monitoring, and timely evacuate people in areas at risk of geological disasters. It's better to be extra careful to prevent any potential losses," Chongqing's mayor Hu Henghua said on Thursday.
Four counties in Chongqing experienced heavy downpours, with the most severe rainfall exceeding 250mm, while 14 other counties and districts recorded precipitation ranging from torrential rain to downpours on Thursday, according to the Chongqing Hydrological Monitoring Station.
Rainfall is categorised into three levels in China, with torrential rain defined as 50-99.9mm, a downpour defined as 100-249.9mm, and rainfall of 250mm or more classified as a heavy downpour.
Due to the rain, a provincial highway collapsed in Chongqing's Kaizhou district, disrupting traffic. Chongqing Railway Station was also affected, with 26 journeys suspended on Thursday, according to CCTV.
The inland megacity of Chongqing sits along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
China faces further challenges along the Yangtze River basin as the water level of the Three Gorges Dam reservoir reached 161.1 metres (528.5 feet), the highest for any July on record, according to the Ministry of Water Resources.
The Changjiang Water Resource Commission, a department that specialises in Yangtze River flood prevention and water pollution, stated that there would be heavy rainfall along the upper reaches of the river in the next 10 days, and a new round of floods would flow into the Three Gorges Dam reservoir around July 16.
A flood with a peak flow of 45,000 cubic metres per second (1.59 million cubic feet per second) is expected to enter the reservoir on Friday, and two other significant water surges are expected in mid-July.
The commission decided to increase the reservoir's outflow on Thursday afternoon, according to CCTV.
The commission said future flood conditions were "highly uncertain", and water levels in the Yangtze's lower reaches would rise after floodwater increased in the reservoir.
The Ministry of Water Resources announced on Thursday that the Yangtze was experiencing its second serious flood of 2024.
The river's first serious flood of the year was announced on June 28, and by Tuesday morning the floodwater had reached the East China Sea, state news agency Xinhua reported.
A wide area of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were affected by the earlier flood, and provinces including Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Anhui were swamped by rainstorms.
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