As temperatures soared across parts of central China's agricultural heartland last month, farmers struggled with day after day without rain.
In sweltering Henan province, many scrambled to irrigate parched crops during what is usually a key growing period, while authorities ordered water use to be limited and for clouds to be artificially seeded in an effort to prod rain clouds, state media reports said.
Just one month later, however, parts of the province were awash – pounded by extreme rain that inundated tens of thousands of acres of cropland and forced more than 100,000 people to evacuate their homes, according to state media.
Parts of Henan's hardest-hit Nanyang city saw more than 600 millimeters (about 24 inches) of rain in 24 hours – three-quarters of what they would normally expect in a whole year. Rescuers navigated streets on speedboats, at times wading through waist-deep floodwaters to pluck people from their homes, footage circulating online showed.
It's a story playing out across China. In the past two weeks, tens of thousands have been evacuated across multiple provinces in the country following deadly floods and landslides, which have blocked highways, destroyed homes and caused devastating financial losses as they wiped out crops and livestock.
The lurch from dry weather to flooding also throws into sharp focus the major challenge for the Chinese government as emergency response and recovery becomes a regular occurrence – and as extreme weather is only expected to become more frequent due to human-driven climate change.
The flooding in Henan and surrounding provinces last week – and the double hit of arid heat and floods in a matter of weeks – has prolonged what has already been a devastating period of extreme weather across China that's forecast to continue.
Torrential rainfall has hit southern, central and eastern parts of the country and led to major emergency response efforts in a flood season that has started some two months ahead of its typical schedule and only last week entered what's known as its peak period.
China's ruling Communist Party acknowledged the urgency of the situation last week, when a communique following a landmark meeting of its top members led by Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged to "refine the measures for monitoring, preventing, and controlling natural disasters, especially floods."
The government has in recent years grown increasingly alert to the domestic risk of climate change – including its potential impact on food security as drought and floods hit lands critical for the national grain supply.
Authorities are meanwhile grappling with the latest crises amid mounting social frustration with China's stuttering economy and the broader direction of the country – and as local governments strapped with high levels of debt are tasked with recovery efforts.
Before last week's floods, natural disasters had already cost nearly $13 billion in direct economic losses and affected 32 million people this year, China's Ministry of Emergency Management said on July 12.
"Last night I couldn't sleep at all," one farmer in Henan's Nanyang city said as he surveyed submerged crop fields in a video posted to social media and shared by a government-linked account.
"All my hard work for a year has come to nothing."
Keep reading about China's extreme weather challenge.
More on flooding across the country in recent weeks:
