Due to the impact of the trough on the northern side of Typhoon “Shadel”, since September 1st, heavy rain has occurred in many areas from southern Zhejiang to eastern Fujian, with some areas experiencing extremely heavy rain. Cangnan County in Wenzhou City, Zhejiang, encountered record-breaking extremely heavy rain, with widespread flooding. More than 2,500 teachers and students from Cangnan County Vocational Middle School were trapped.
According to a report from China Weather Network on September 2nd, from 8:00 on September 1st to 8:00 on September 2nd, the precipitation in Wenzhou Cangnan at a national-level weather station reached 382.5 millimeters, breaking the local record for single-day rainfall. In Fujian, Zherong and Fuding received 321mm and 309mm of rainfall respectively. Looking from regional automatic stations, some areas in southern Zhejiang and northeastern Fujian received over 400mm of rainfall.
On the afternoon of September 2nd, Wenzhou Meteorological Observatory upgraded the yellow rainstorm warning signal for the urban area to the red rainstorm warning signal.
Due to the continuous heavy rainfall, there were floods in many areas in Wenzhou, with some roads experiencing deep water accumulation. Wenzhou’s districts of Lucheng, Longwan, Ouhai, Ruian, Wen Cheng, Pingyang, Taishun, Cangnan, and Longgang successively issued notices to suspend classes. The city has evacuated over 120,000 people accumulatively.
Cangnan County was one of the areas most affected by the heavy rainfall. Due to the extreme heavy rainfall, many towns in Cangnan, including Lingxi, Zaoxi, Qianku, and Mazhan, have faced dangerous situations, with some residents being trapped.
On the morning of September 2nd, a resident in Cangnan County, Mr. Xu, told Jiupai News that many residents went to supermarkets last night when they saw the water rising to hoard supplies. The water rose to over a meter deep at its peak, surpassing thigh level, submerging small cars completely and flooding the ground floors of houses along the street. Some resettlement areas and old neighborhoods have had their water and power cut off today. In areas with lower elevation and severe flooding, most people are staying at home resting and not going to work. Outside his window, on a street with relatively mild flooding, around forty to fifty cars were submerged, and some people were using kayaks to travel.
According to mainland media reports, on the morning of September 2nd, heavy flooding hit some areas in the urban part of Cangnan County in Wenzhou, with many residents, including pregnant women and the elderly, being stranded at home.
At Cangnan Second High School, the accumulated water flooded the first floor of the dormitory, and the teachers and students who remained there relayed emergency supplies such as drinking water and milk to floors above the second floor to ensure their livelihood.
Due to its low-lying terrain, Cangnan County Vocational Middle School experienced rapid flooding within the campus, with the deepest water reaching the top of vehicles and trapping over 2,500 teachers and students on campus. Surrounded by floodwaters, all roads around the school were completely cut off, hindering personnel movement and supply transportation. The school simultaneously faced water and power outages, posing a severe challenge to the livelihood security of teachers and students. Around 9 a.m. on the 2nd, several large and medium-sized unmanned aerial vehicles were dispatched locally to drop food, drinking water, and other supplies onto the campus.
In addition, there were incidents of landslides in some areas. On September 2nd, due to severe landslides, the overflow channel of the Golden Chicken Cage in Chixi Town, Cangnan County became seriously blocked, causing the water level to rise too high and leading to the risk of overflow. At various sections of County Road 528 Daifeng and Daiban Line, landslides occurred with large amounts of mud, rocks, and fallen trees blocking the road completely, turning Kongmen Village into an isolated “island” due to severed transportation links.