72 Hours of Torrential Rain: Washed-Away Paddies, Disrupted Lives

Foodthink Says

It started with an once-in-sixty-years drought. From November last year to April this year, average rainfall across Guangxi fell nearly 70 per cent short of the long-term average, marking the driest period on record since comprehensive meteorological data began in 1961. Severe drought gripped certain areas, leaving 2.38 million people affected.

With the onset of the flood season, drought gave way to deluge. Since 18 June, the Liujiang River basin has been pummeled by prolonged, widespread heavy rainfall. Liuzhou, Hechi, and Baise have seen torrential to extremely heavy rain, with isolated pockets experiencing exceptional downpours. Among the farmers in Hechi and Liuzhou that Foodthink knows, several have been struck by flooding, enduring water and power cuts, submerged rice paddies, and failed fruit tree pollination. These disruptions have not only upended daily life but also severely jeopardised this year’s livelihood.

As climate change accelerates—driven by rising temperatures and higher atmospheric moisture—the odds of rapid drought-to-flood transitions will only climb. Soil baked hard by drought loses its ability to absorb water; when heavy rain finally breaks through, it quickly triggers flash floods and landslides. Such events are also far more difficult to forecast.

Foodthink has compiled firsthand accounts from four locals who lived through the crisis. Let’s hear what they endured, and consider their reflections on the flooding.

 Heli Village, Sanjiang County, Liuzhou, Guangxi

It started raining here on 20 June, with torrential downpours lasting for two days and two nights. With water and electricity cut off and no mobile signal, we holed up in our dark homes, too afraid to venture out. The uncertainty was deeply unsettling. Some, unable to bear the worry, donned straw hats or took umbrellas to check on the rice fields and fish ponds.

In my lifetime, I only recall one major flood back in 1996, but this one is far worse. The mountains around here are steep, climbing to around 800 metres. Trees and boulders were swept down the slopes. Whole terraces of tea plantations slipped away, and further down, roads and farmland were completely washed out. The devastation was almost too much to look at.

Every household keeps a small fish pond. We raise carp and grass carp ourselves for guests during festivals and holidays. Now, all the fish across the village have been swept away. Fortunately, the government had secured agricultural insurance for the village’s rice fields. We are now being asked to photograph our own plots and submit them to the village committee for verification; hopefully, the insurance company will step in to cover the losses.

Once the rain eased, our first priority was to restore the water supply. The village’s main source, located on a mountain at 500 metres altitude, had also been washed away. It was built up there because the lack of agriculture keeps the water cleaner. The village constructed a small reservoir to collect spring water, channelled it down via two or three pipes through two settling tanks, and distributed it to each household. The entire water conveyance system ran along a mountain gully, but the gully was now scoured clean down to the bedrock. The reservoir was smashed to pieces, and as for the pipes, they were gone without a trace.

Fortunately, last year the villagers voluntarily pooled funds and labour to restore two water sources at the foot of the mountain. These backup supplies are now absolutely critical. Due to severe drought in recent years, we dug out some old mountain spring wells and brought them back into use, even building wooden pavilions over them. This allows villagers resting from working up and down the slopes to drink and refresh themselves, while also providing emergency irrigation.

When we proposed repairing these backup sources last year, villagers acknowledged the severe dryness and felt it would at least provide some security; they also noted it could be useful in the event of heavy flooding. Over the past two years, we have all come to realise that the climate is becoming increasingly erratic, bringing more severe droughts and floods alike.

The heavy rain this time battered the pavilion, leaving it twisted out of shape. Villagers immediately went to clear the wells, and fortunately the water wasn’t too muddy. We then temporarily rigged up some discarded pipes to divert water from the gully into our homes. The day before yesterday, we spent a full day surveying the damage up the mountain, gathering our evidence, and heading to the county water conservancy bureau for help. Officials said it wasn’t just our village; many townships were facing the same issue. With so many people applying for relief, they would be collecting data, but they couldn’t promise a quick fix.

In truth, we’ve grown accustomed to drought in recent years. The first half of this year was exceptionally dry. When it came time to transplant rice seedlings earlier on, there wasn’t enough water to prepare the paddies. Those sources were barely sufficient for drinking. Sometimes drinking water was scarce itself, let alone for irrigation. Each household had to take turns waiting for water to harrow the fields. The water would drain from one family’s plot and flow into the next.

Never did we expect that just after we had finished transplanting, most of the crop would be submerged again, wiping out all our hard work. Farm plots here are small, mostly for subsistence. I cultivate a larger area, growing over ten mu of ecologically grown rice with a few fellow villagers, which we sell in the city. Now, four or five mu have either been washed away or flooded, while others are buried under sediment and stones that have smothered the seedlings. Fortunately, the remaining five mu sit on higher ground, safely outside the flood’s path.

There’s simply no recourse against a disaster of this scale. The fields washed away or buried under mud cannot be saved. I plan to wait until the waters recede, then check the submerged plots to see if the seedlings can be braced back upright. We’ll salvage what we can.

Actually, it’s not entirely hopeless. Twenty or thirty years ago, these hills were covered in natural forest. But poverty meant we had to develop the local economy, so we cleared the land to plant Chinese fir. Now the slopes are mostly fir with very little mixed woodland, and villagers have come to realise that the severe droughts and floods are linked to this monoculture. Elderly locals explain that a mixed forest offers biodiversity: trees with both narrow and broad leaves absorb and release water at different rates. With nothing but fir now, they all draw up moisture at the same time and release it together. In droughts, they all suck the water dry; when it rains and the roots are saturated, they release it all at once, which is why flash floods can rise so suddenly.

Over the past few years, we’ve started voluntarily planting a variety of native trees around communal spaces, roadsides, and water sources. Let’s hope it makes a difference.

 Lihu Township, Nandan County, Guangxi

It rained heavily throughout last Thursday. Heavy downpours used to cause flooding in the past, so we’d grown accustomed to it and barely gave it a second thought. I never imagined the waters would rise so swiftly this time. If memory serves, this has been the most violent surge we’ve ever seen.

I was told the reservoirs upstream had released their waters. We’re situated on low-lying ground, and the karst landscape here is riddled with underground caves. After this downpour, locals said they finally understood why the place is called “Lihu” (meaning ‘inner lake’). The subterranean river system is all interconnected, with numerous inlets and outlets throughout our township. When the underground currents swell too rapidly, the water forces its way up through the earth.

The flooding this time mainly affected Lihu Community and Badi New Village. I live in Lihu Community, which runs along a steep, lengthy slope from the top of the street down to the bottom. My home sits in the middle section, on slightly higher ground, so it escaped the waters. Almost everything downhill was submerged. One of my aunties lives right at the bottom of the slope; the dry creek bed that usually runs past her door turned into a raging torrent.

Her husband and two elder daughters work away from home, leaving only her and the youngest daughter behind. When the authorities ordered an evacuation and arranged for residents to be relocated to the school dormitories, the mother and daughter couldn’t bring themselves to abandon their belongings. Instead, they spent their time shuttling their possessions upstairs to safer ground.

This region is home to the Bai Ku Yao community, where women traditionally craft their own ethnic garments by hand. The auntie had painstakingly sewn several ceremonial outfits for her three daughters – attire reserved for important occasions like the annual market gatherings, funerals, and weddings. Crafting a single outfit requires a significant outlay for traditional accessories and often takes years of meticulous hand-stitching to complete. Over the two days of torrential rain, the pair carried these cherished garments from the ground floor up to the fourth. Whenever exhaustion took hold at night, they would curl up to sleep right beside them, keeping watch over their mother’s years of labour.

By 1 am on Saturday, watching the water continue to rise, the two of them finally decided to leave. Their neighbours had already evacuated long before. They draped themselves in plastic sheeting, slipped out through the back door on the second floor, and braved the lashing rain to climb the hill and find a rough track. They walked for about forty minutes to stay with relatives three kilometres away. I asked, “Walking out so late must have been terrifying. Weren’t you scared?” They replied, “With each other for company, we weren’t afraid.”

They came to stay with me during the day on the day before yesterday, constantly worrying about the costumes and regretting that they had only moved their things up to the fourth floor instead of the fifth. They were so distressed they lay awake all night. My aunt called her husband, who is working in Hunan. However, both routes leading out of the area—one heading towards Libo in Guizhou, the other towards Nandan county town—were completely cut off. Her husband eventually made his way back from the Nandan direction; it’s said he had to climb up the mountain and trek right around the range just to get through.

As soon as the rain stopped on Sunday, they headed home to find the water had only reached the second floor. With the costumes completely safe, they were overjoyed. If the downpour had continued for just one more day, my house would certainly have been flooded as well.

The government delivered relief supplies by fast rescue boat: vegetables, drinking water, and a generator, as the power had been cut for two days. Electricity returned to the street by yesterday lunchtime, but there was still no running water. I took several five-litre buckets down the road to a neighbour’s house to fetch water for cooking and drinking. However, when the supply at the end of the street eventually dried up, I had to go up the mountain to my mother’s house to collect water. Water was still available up there because the main supply feeds into high-level reservoirs before being distributed to individual homes. The reservoirs still held enough water.

A friend runs a restaurant down the street. We were hosting an event last Friday evening and had booked dinner with them. When I went back to return a pot and a basin, the place was deserted, so I popped into the kitchen area. They were all downstairs moving stock out, and the water had already reached their knees. They keep chickens and pigs on the lower ground floor, which were completely submerged. The chickens were straightforward to move, but the pigs had been fattened up considerably, each weighing around 200 to 250 kilograms. To make matters worse, herding them up a steep flight of stairs seemed impossible. I couldn’t even imagine how they would manage it. We had even said, “We’ll come round for breakfast tomorrow morning.” By the next day, my husband said, “No chance. It’s all underwater. The roads are completely cut off, and the floodwater must have risen right above the shop.”

Badidi New Village was also flooded. Situated in a low-lying area, it floods every year. Residents originally lived on the mountain summit, but around 2008, the government reportedly organised staggered relocations due to hazards such as freezing weather and rockfalls. However, after moving to the new village at the foot of the mountain, people soon returned. The houses were cramped and far from their farmland. Daily tasks like growing vegetables, keeping chickens or pigs, and collecting firewood became inconvenient. Furthermore, with local customs surrounding weddings and funerals requiring relatives to visit, the small houses at the mountain’s base couldn’t accommodate gatherings. Traditions like singing feast songs needed space, and there wasn’t even room to lay out a long table. As a result, everyone built homes again near their mountain plots.

Guangxi, Nandan Lihu Township, Huaili Village

I arrived in Huaili Village on 11 June and stayed at the Bailuyao Eco-Cultural Museum. This was my second visit to research the Bailuyao people’s mulberry and silkworm culture. During my first week, I helped villagers tend to the silkworms, which were in the silk-spinning stage. Fortunately, it didn’t rain during those days. Villagers explained that thunderstorms during silk-spinning degrade the quality of the silk, and the mulberry leaves fed to the silkworms must be kept dry.

Rain began just two days after the silkworm rearing cycle finished. On the evening of 20 June, the downpour was particularly heavy, flooding half of the village’s ethnic cultural square. In the early hours, the museum’s circuit breaker kept tripping, followed by a power cut. Initially, I thought the museum’s electricity meter had been submerged. Later, chatting with villagers, it became clear that the substation was flooded. They said they had never seen water levels this high before.

On the afternoon of the 21st, Sister He, a museum staff member, moved her entire family in to stay with us. Her family runs a hardware store on the main street, situated in a low-lying area that suffered the worst flooding. When the waters began to rise on the 20th, they spent hours shifting stock from the ground and first floors up to the second and third floors, working until 4 a.m. the following day. Realising it was futile—the water would inevitably reach the ceiling—they had no choice but to seek shelter at the museum.

The entire township had lost power, so anyone needing to charge a device had to head to the Lihu Primary School canteen or the local health centre. On the evening of the 21st, with little else to do, I joined Sister He and some others for a walk to Huaile Dazhai, a kilometre down the road, to visit friends. Remarkably, the solar-powered streetlights along the route were still working.

Losing electricity is inconvenient enough, but going without water is another matter entirely. Behind the museum sits a water reservoir, which villagers from several surrounding hamlets came to draw from. Water was never an issue for us; Sister Lvfeng even made the trip to the museum to wash her clothes.

By 8.30 a.m. on the 22nd, the floodwater had reached the entrance of the township government building. When I passed by after 3 p.m., the water level had dropped by at least thirty to forty metres. Township volunteers were out helping to clear the streets, with some in protective suits spraying disinfectant. Sister He and her family had returned to the street, busy slopping standing water out of the shop. Once the waters finally retreated, they left behind a thin layer of mud.

Ya’rduo Tun, Laren Town, Du’an County, Hechi

My farm is located in Ya’rduo Tun, Laren Town, 122 kilometres from the county town of Du’an and more than 160 kilometres from Lihu Township, Nandan. There are no major rivers or gullies here, so floodwaters rarely rise. This contrasts with Sanjiang County, where Ah Fu is based, which lies downstream on the Rongjiang River (Editor’s note: during the same period, Rongjiang in Guizhou province endured a once-in-30-years flood). My pomelo trees are planted on sloping terrain with excellent drainage, and Laren Town has never experienced the kind of torrential rain that triggers landslides. It could easily be considered a naturally protected piece of land.

While we escaped the floodwaters this time, more than a week of unbroken rain washed away the passion fruit pollen. Without pollination, the flowers simply couldn’t set fruit. I began cultivating passion fruit last year, when the weather pattern was completely reversed: heavy rains fell throughout the first half of the year, meaning we didn’t get the seedlings in the ground until after the May Day holiday. A late planting naturally led to a lean harvest, yielding just over 1,000 jin (500 kg) from more than a mu of land.

The first half of the year has been parched. We planted new passion fruit saplings and had to wait until May for the rain to finally break. The forecast says more showers are coming, but there’s nothing for it: we’ll have to wait for the rain to stop, prune the branches where the pollen was washed off, and let them keep flowering. The vines keep growing, so we ought to have another batch ready for market by next month.

Having seen so much rain last spring, I was braced for more heavy showers, but I certainly wasn’t ready for a drought. The dry spell started in the second half of last year. At the time, I was nearly done harvesting my fruit, so I didn’t give it much thought. Who would have guessed it would stretch from last year straight into this one? The harvest on my over two mu of corn is going to be cut in half for sure.

I’ve been working the land since 2013, and it’s the first time I’ve faced a drought this severe. The rain didn’t come until mid-May this year; had it arrived two weeks later, the corn would have been beyond saving. When the soil is this dry, you simply can’t water in the fertiliser — I mix pig and cattle manure fermented in a biogas digester with water and pour it over the fields. Without both moisture and nutrients, the crops just won’t thrive. I’ve also put in a few mu of small yellow ginger, which is fairly drought-hardy. It was planted in mid-March, but the shoots have been taking their time. Give it another month to grow, and the ginger will be a good deal bigger.