At least 17 people have died, more than 300 have been injured, and over 130,000 have been evacuated after days of severe storms swept central and southern China, with Typhoon Maysak driving catastrophic flooding in the south and triggering rare tornadoes hundreds of kilometres away in the centre of the country. President Xi Jinping has ordered rescuers to "go all out" in emergency operations as the scale of the disaster continues to grow.

The worst flooding has struck Guangxi, a southern Chinese region bordering Vietnam, where Typhoon Maysak — the first typhoon to make landfall in China in the 2026 season — caused rivers to swell and dam walls to burst. At least six people died in Guangxi, around 40 rivers and waterways overflowed, and nearly 13,000 acres of agricultural land were damaged. In the regional capital, Nanning, authorities raised flood-control emergency responses to their highest level. Residents described water rising with terrifying speed: one villager from Renhe, surnamed Zhou, told how floodwaters submerged the entire first floor of homes before dawn, giving families barely enough time to flee without food. A four-month-old infant went more than a day without milk. Thousands remain trapped on rooftops, some in remote mountain villages, with limited communication and dwindling supplies. "There are too many villages affected, and not enough rescue workers," Zhou said.

Hundreds of kilometres to the north, in Hubei province — a landlocked central Chinese region home to the city of Wuhan — the interaction of cold air from the north with warm, moisture-laden air carried in by the typhoon produced rare and violent tornadoes. At least 11 people were killed and 331 injured in Hubei, with tornadoes touching down near the cities of Ezhou and Huanggang. State media reports that 4,800 houses were damaged and 22 collapsed. In one widely reported incident, a man was sucked out of his high-rise apartment when the tornado shattered his windows, plunging twelve storeys to the ground; he was reportedly left in intensive care. A student in Huanggang described sheltering in a dormitory as windows exploded inward and debris flew through the air. Tornadoes are extremely unusual in this part of China; the last recorded occurrence was in 2021.

Elsewhere, a landslide in Gansu, a northwestern province, killed five people and left twelve others missing, while flash floods in Inner Mongolia's Tongliao city and the northeastern city of Fushun claimed a further five lives — with Fushun recording rainfall between 1am and 7am that "shattered historical records". A further Super Typhoon, Bavi, is forecast to strike China's eastern coast later this week, raising fears of compounding damage.

The scale of the disaster has put a spotlight on China's growing vulnerability to extreme weather. Scientists warn that climate change is intensifying both the frequency and severity of such events globally. China, as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, faces particular scrutiny, though it has also emerged as a major force in renewable energy and has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. For the communities currently marooned by floodwaters — waiting on rooftops, cut off from family, running short of food — those long-term questions are secondary to an immediate and desperate need for rescue.