Following the impact of Typhoons “Hua Jia Sha,” “Bo Luo Yi,” and “Mai De Mu,” as well as continuous heavy rainfall, the city of Baise in Guangxi Province has experienced rainfall amounts more than five times higher than historical averages. Flooding began in September and has persisted for nearly twenty days to a month, yet it has not completely receded. Numerous villages have been surrounded by floodwaters, turning into “islands” and experiencing water, power, and communication outages. The remaining residents in these villages, mostly elderly individuals aged in their fifties and sixties, have had to seek refuge on higher floors to survive.
On October 19, Luo Shaogao, a grid member of Huacan Village in Babe Township, Tianyang District of Baise City, reported to Southern Metropolis Daily that floodwaters in the village have largely receded. While there are still residual puddles around five to six households in Dajiangtun, the water level in the majority of areas has dropped to below the ground floor.
From late September to early October, Guangxi was successively struck by different typhoons, causing severe flooding in many areas. In Baise City, water levels in some villages rose to as high as about 15 meters. Videos shared by Baise residents showed many collapsed houses, destroyed homes, roads turned into waterways requiring boats for transportation, and extensive flooding and crop damage in farmlands.
After Typhoon “Mai De Mu” made landfall in Guangdong on October 5, it further impacted Guangxi and Yunnan on the 6th and 7th of October. Floodwaters exceeded warning levels in 15 rivers across Guangxi.
On October 14, the mainland media outlet Jiupai News reported that villagers in flooded areas of Baise City estimated the highest water levels to reach around 15 meters above the roads, with each floor of the houses being about 3.6 meters high and the lowest water level close to around 4 meters.
One of the most severe impacts of the flooding disaster is the agricultural losses suffered by many villages. The rapid rise in water levels coupled with days of inundation resulted in large numbers of chickens, ducks, pigs, and cattle housed on the ground floors drowning. Additionally, furniture, appliances, food, and other valuables inside many homes were submerged and severely damaged, leading to significant direct losses of family property.
For these villages, once the floodwaters ultimately recede, the challenges of restoring daily production and life activities will only just begin.
During the period when the villages were surrounded by floodwaters, there was a disruption in water and electricity supply within the communities, no communication signals, and many of the residents who remained were elderly individuals or children who were not adept at using modern communication devices and social media platforms, making it difficult to convey information about the disaster and seek help. The first to disseminate information about the flooding in Baise villages were a group of aerial photography enthusiasts whose videos captured the devastation from an aerial perspective: fields and roads connecting to the outside world were almost completely submerged and unrecognizable. Surrounded by floodwaters, the villages appeared as clusters of homes gathered together, resembling isolated islands when seen from afar.
The footage showed many elderly and children forced to move to upper floors or rooftops, leaning against walls or gazing out at the vast expanse of water in front of them. The flooded villages had become “information islands.”
“Normally, whenever there’s a flood anywhere, it seems to trend on social media, but Baise, with such a significant flood event, hardly received any attention,” remarked aerial photography enthusiast Li Ban. “If it wasn’t for my aerial videos being pushed out on Douyin (China’s TikTok), many people might never have seen these conditions.”
According to local official reports, as of October 18, there were a total of 365 internal inundation points in Baise City, with 122 still unresolved, mainly concentrated in Jingxi City, Debao County, and Tianyang District. Among them, Jingxi and Debao received rainfall amounts averaging 8 to 9 times higher than historical averages, making them the worst-hit areas.
Aerial footage from October 19 showed that the ground floor and below of Dajintun in Baise were still submerged in standing water.