The TEDA Flood

Although I did not take this photo, scenes such as the one to the right are quite common in the south of China where there have been horrible rains. This adds to the complications due to the earthquake recently. I do hope that everyone down south makes their way through all of these recent calamities.

I think the storm hitting the south came up North to this area in a less severe form. I was at work and the day seemed pretty normal, the sky was bright in the morning which persisted until about two in the afternoon. Suddenly the sky turned a very dark hue of grey, so dark that it was almost night. At first, the rain began to fall softly. This didn't last and as it grew in strength, the office which I worked in was filled with the drumming of a thousand raindrops falling on the roof. I checked outside about halfway through the storm (It lasted an hour) to find tiny chunks of ice on the ground about twice the size of peas. It was a truly bizarre occurrence. Luckily, the rain stopped just before it was time for me to leave work.

TEDA seemed to have weathered the storm fairly well, there were a few large puddles here and there but they were being drained away rapidly by the storm-drain system. During the rainstorm, from what I could see, some areas were flooded with water that was about calf high. This occurred even in places right above storm drains which speaks volumes about the amount of rain falling. There were a few scattered showers during the following few days but the storm seems to passed us by here in the most part.

Photo source:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/floods-prompt-mass-evacuation-in-china/2007/06/08/1181089306168.html