The catastrophiccatastrophic/ˌkætəˈstrɒfɪk/L3灾难性的；造成巨大损失的causing sudden and widespread destruction or suffering; extremely disastrous impact of Typhoon Maysak, which made landfall in China during the 2026 season, has been characterised by its sudden onset and intense, short-duration winds, unleashing devastating floods and rare tornadoes across multiple provinces. In Guangxi, torrential rains inundated villages such as Renhe, where water levels rose so precipitouslyprecipitously/prɪˈsɪpɪtəsli/L3急剧地；突然地in a very sudden and steep manner; happening quickly and unexpectedly that residents had no time to gather provisions before fleeing; one villager, surnamed Zhou, recounted to the BBC that the floods came so fast that families escaped without food. At least four fatalities have been confirmed, while tens of thousands have been displaced, with the official count estimating 60,000 evacuated and over 90,000 affected by the delugedeluge/ˈdɛljuːdʒ/L3大洪水；暴雨a severe flood or a heavy downpour of rain; an overwhelming quantity of something, which has also caused dam walls to break and rivers to swell alarmingly.
Concurrently, the typhoon triggered thunderstorms and at least two tornadoes in Hubei province, hundreds of kilometres away—an exceedingly rare phenomenon for the region, with the last such event recorded in 2021. Meteorologists attribute this to cold air from the north colliding with warm, moist air carried by Maysak, resulting in winds that shattered windows, hurled furniture, and even sucked a man from his high-rise apartment in Huanggang, plunging him twelve storeys; he now remains in intensive care. A student in Huanggang described witnessing objects flying through the air outside his dormitory, with many peers cut by shards of glass, encapsulatingencapsulating/ɪnˈkæpsjʊleɪtɪŋ/L3概括；浓缩summarizing or representing the essence of something in a concise form the sheer terror of a disaster that unfolded with little warning.
The devastation has prompted President Xi Jinping to order all-out rescue and relief operations, underscoring the need to treat the injured, resettle affected residents, and carry out disaster prevention effectively. Notwithstanding these efforts, authorities in Nanning have warned that extremely heavy rain could hamper rescue operations, while residents like Zhou and Huang describe a dire shortage of personnel and inadequate lifeboats, leaving thousands trapped on rooftops with limited food and no communication. Compounding the crisis, floodwaters have enabled snakes—both wild and those farmed for traditional medicine—to escape, adding a visceral layer of peril to an already desperate situation.
Extreme weather events, increasingly linked by experts to climate change, pose a growing threat to China's trillion-dollar agriculture sector and its broader economy, a context underscored by the arrival of Super Typhoon Bavi, which is churning across the Pacific and expected to hit the eastern coast later this week. In the interim, families remain separated and desperate: Zhou's four-month-old niece has gone over a day without milk, while a young woman who lost contact with her parents in Gantang town frets helplessly, unable to ascertain their fate as water reaches the second floor of their building. The human toll, compounded by infrastructural fragility and the sheer scale of the affected area, suggests that recovery will be protractedprotracted/prəˈtræktɪd/L3延长的；持久的lasting for a long time or longer than expected; prolonged and fraught with challenges.
