
A particularly harsh first bout of summer rains known locally as "dragon boat water" saw Beihai in the Guangxi region log 614.7 millimetres (24.2 inches) of precipitation over 24 hours as of 5:00 a.m. (2100 GMT) on Friday, according to the region's weather bureau.
That was more than a third of the rainfall seen in a typical year by the port city, and surpassed the national record of 552.5 mm seen by Zhengzhou in central China in a single day in 2021.
In Beihai, cars were half underwater in flooded streets, and at one multi-storey building water cascaded down a staircase as firefighters raced to rescue its residents, videos circulating on social media showed.











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