Chongqing sees break thanks to cloud seeding

End seen to extended heat wave, drought conditions, but flooding risk a possibility

Some parts of Chongqing welcomed long-awaited rains on Friday morning as the southwestern municipality has endured brutally hot temperatures this summer for several straight days.

But experts warn that the city should prepare for possible flooding and landslides after an ongoing severe drought made mountainsides vulnerable to sudden downpours.

On Friday, Chongqing's Wansheng district carried out cloud seeding activities to bring the region long-awaited precipitation unseen since Aug 7. Rainfall was also prompted by seeding in other districts including Ba'nan and Qijiang.

The heat and drought conditions in Chongqing's 22 districts and counties have been slightly alleviated since Thursday after Chongqing conducted enhanced mass cloud seeding operations, the Chongqing Meteorological Bureau said at a news conference on Friday. The city is seeking more opportunities to artificially induce precipitation.

Neighboring Sichuan province also witnessed some regions finally seeing rainfall after cloud seeding operations on Friday. And such measures will be carried out to further alleviate the lingering heat waves and drought conditions, the province's artificial weather intervention office said.

After over 20 days of searing heat, Sichuan and Chongqing are about to see an end to the scorching misery in the coming days.

On Monday, the ongoing heat wave in Chongqing is expected to ease, with daily highs in most parts of the municipality struggling to reach 35 C, and wide swathes of rainfall are forecast, Zhang Yan, from the city's meteorological bureau, said on Friday.

Zhang said the city should prepare for the upcoming downpours.

The National Meteorological Center also forecast heavy rains in most parts of Sichuan and Chongqing in the following 10 days.

It said that there will be five to eight rainy days, with precipitation 40-100 percent more than normal level for the period, and isolated regions will see twice the rainfall typically seen. Therefore, residents in affected areas should prepare for flooding and landslide risks since the ongoing dry spell has left caked hillsides less able to absorb fast-moving waters.

With sweltering conditions lingering, several wildfires have swept across Chongqing recently. As of Friday, all heat-related fires had been brought under control in the municipality, local authorities said at the Friday news conference.

A team of 736 well-trained forest firefighters from Yunnan, 228 from Sichuan and 94 from Gansu province have joined the firefighting efforts in Chongqing.

Zhang Zhenlin, deputy director of the political department of the Yunnan Provincial Forest Fire Brigade, one of the teams supporting Chongqing, said locals have greatly facilitated their efforts by helping extinguish wildfires. "I'm impressed that despite the very hot weather, the local people are very hospitable," Zhang said.