China has managed to grow the first cotton seeds on the moon.

A 66 foot long brick wall was blown down in China and this collapse, which occurred on a street in Lanzhou City, northwestern China, has claimed 2 lives and left 7 people injured. The trapped pedestrians were dug out by the rescuers using shovels and other tools as well as searching the debris for further victims.

The Three Gorges Dam is accused of causing landslide that has claimed two lives and left several others injured in the southwestern Wushan County.

A 6.5-magnitude earthquake that hit China's northwestern Xinjiang province, has claimed 6 lives and left 48 people injured today.

A landslide which buried a section of a road in southwest China's Yunnan Province has claimed three lives and eight people missing.

Three seconds were enough for a bridge with a height of 180 meters, in China, to be destroyed, after a controlled explosion.

Cracks appeared suddenly in one of the glass panels of the impressive bridge in China's Yuntai Mountain, resulting in a group of Chinese tourists to start screaming in terror.

On May 22nd, a sinkhole appeared near a busy intersection in Ruijin, a city in the Jiangxi privince of southeast China. Four cars and a tree fell into the sinkhole. Luckily, the cars were unoccupied and nobody was injured. The cause of this sinkhole is under investigation.

Early in the morning on Friday, July 1st, a landslide occurred in the Guizhou Province of China trapping 30 people under debris. As of Sunday, all missing persons were accounted for. Unfortunately, 23 people were killed while the remaining 7 were transported to local hospitals in serious condition but are expected to survive.

The landslide was caused by heavy rainfall in the area. Much of China has experienced greater than average rainfall this year. Just last week a hurricane-force storm killed 98 people in Jiangsu Province. 

Soldiers and rescue workers were dispached to the Guizhou Province to search for those lost in the landslide. Now that everyone is accounted for, reconstruction and repair of the area has begun. Over 95,000 cubic meters of material was moved by the landslide which covered 19,000 square meters. Over 120,000 people were displaced due to the size of the landslide.

Original article

Last week, widespread flooding in the Yangtze river basin in China has left over 170 dead and millions homeless. The area has received record rainfall this year, causing the Yangtze river and its tributaries to swell, flooding nearby areas. Some of the most severe flooding has occurred near the city of Wuhan which has a population over 8 million.

Over the preceding week, the area experienced 22.6 inches of rainfall with 18 of that being within a four day period. More than 40,000 homes have been destroyed by the flood water and 1.5 million people have been evacuated from areas along the Yangtze River. Nearly 170,000 people have been relocated in the city of Wuhan alone. The heavy rainfall has caused several landslides including one in Xinjiang killing 35 people and leaving more missing. 

In addition to the danger to the population, the flooding has caused a significant economic toll on the country. Agriculture is one of the predominant industries of the area and over 700,000 acres of crops were destroyed by the floods. The high water and landslides have also caused significant damage to infrastructure such as the communication and electrical networks. Estimates of economic losses are already surpassing 5.73 billion dollars.

This isn't the first time this area of China has experience heavy flooding. In 2013, the Chinese government pledged to spend $2 million on repair and upgrading the country's flood protection and prevention systems including drainage pipes and channels. Many believe that the government did not deliver on this promise.

China is not the only country impacted by these events. Pakistan has experienced monsoon rains and flash flooding killing over 30 people in Chitral near the China-Pakistan border.

Source: weather.com

Additional Source: New York Times