Flash flood alert system in Guangxi prevents tragedy

A flood monitoring and warning system in Guangxi accurately predicted a flash flood in a village, The Paper reported. The system evacuated more than 100 residents from a high-risk area and avoided any casualties.

Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region has recently experienced heavy rainfall. At 4 pm on June 30, the region’s water resources department and the meteorological bureau jointly issued a flood warning.

They sent an alert and predicted a high likelihood of floods in Rong’an county from 8 pm on June 30 to 8 pm on July 1 before urging local authorities to conduct monitoring, inspections, warnings and evacuation measures.

At 4:02 am on July 1, the Guangxi flood monitoring and forecasting system detected that rainfall in Si’an village, Rong’an county, had reached 43.5 mm between 3 pm and 4 am, triggering a pre-evacuation warning.

The county’s water resources bureau immediately issued a pre-evacuation warning to village and town officials.

At 6 am, a flash flood hit the village, collapsing 12 houses and damaging 13 others. Thanks to the warning system, 37 households, totaling 112 people, had been evacuated beforehand.

There were no casualties during the flood.

The Guangxi Water Resources Department has established a tiered warning response mechanism to ensure a closed-loop response.

Upon receiving heavy rain warnings, the city-level water resources bureau alerts the county-level bureau. The regional flash flood monitoring and forecasting system issues real-time warnings, which responsible individuals acknowledge via text. If no response is received within 10 minutes, the system automatically calls the accountable person using AI voice calls.

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