After snakes, now Chinese streets are flooded with hundreds of cars that were swept away due to the most powerful typhoon. Severe flooding in China's northern Hebei province and northeastern Liaoning province submerged roads and swept away ‌cars, while people swam, paddle-boarded and wake surfed along neighbourhood streets, videos on social media showed. Water levels rose to more than two metres on roads in Kuancheng, a county in Hebei, according to a resident's account that was broadcast by local official media.

Videos on RedNote, known in China as Xiaohongshu, showed a person swimming backstroke down a road in Shenyang, Liaoning, with the rows of parked cars on the side of the street almost completely submerged by the water. Another clip on RedNote showed someone standing ‌on a paddleboard to navigate the flooded streets.

900 venomous snake swept away in flood

This came days after around 900 snakes – many of them venomous – were on the loose after Typhoon Maysak swept through Hengzhou, a southern Chinese city of some one million residents. Nightmarish videos posted by concerned residents have shown serpents paddling through the streets, their heads raised comfortably above the floodwaters like venomous periscopes, according to a CNN report.

Meanwhile, in Kuancheng, which is home to around 2,40,000 people and is located on the banks of the Luan River, several cars were filmed crashing into each other in Kuancheng as they bobbed up and down a waterlogged road before being carried away by the strength of the current.

(A toppled information sign in the aftermath of Typhoon Bavi in the coastal village of Dongsha, Taizhou, Zhejiang province | CREDIT: REUTERS)

ALSO READ: China Floods: 30 Killed After A Year's Worth Of Rain Fell In Days; Xi Orders To Activate Emergency Response

China is experiencing most powerful storm 

The floods came after Typhoon Bavi, the most powerful storm to strike mainland China this year, brought heavy rain to the eastern coast and violent winds to the area's densely populated cities, testing the country's ability to cope with extreme weather.

(A person sits beside a collapsed wall in the aftermath of Typhoon Bavi in the coastal village of Dongsha, Taizhou, Zhejiang province | CREDIT: REUTERS)

Authorities warned the storm would dump torrential rain across the provinces of Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Anhui, exacerbating flood risks in areas that had already been soaked by earlier downpours.

ALSO READ: China Floods: Flash Flood In Gansu Province Kills 10, Xi Orders 'All-Out' Rescue As 33 Still Missing

Around 1,800 villagers in Kuancheng were stranded, state broadcaster CCTV reported, while authorities said that relocating and resettling residents was their top priority. In Liaoning, authorities raised the red alert for flash floods, warning of very high risks. "During a red alert for heavy rain, all work stoppages, business closures, and gatherings must be fully implemented," Hebei authorities said in a statement on WeChat.

(With inputs from Reuters)

You may also like to watch