No sooner was it announced the third most at-risk area for natural disasters in the world than the Pearl River Delta in China was hit by extremely severe rain storms with giant hail and damaging winds. The region, which is composed of several major urban centers has experienced flooded subways stations, canceled flights, and destroyed shopping centers due to heavy downpours.

Some of these scenes have been recorded and shared online in video form.

At around 9pm on 30 March, the Shenzhen City meteorological observatory issued a “red alert” warning, the highest given for severe rain storms. Afterwards, Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport delayed all flights. At the announcement, angry passengers reportedly stormed service counters and took them over, damaging computers and other equipment.

There were also comments allegedly from people inside the building to the effect of “the airport is flooded,” however those have not been confirmed. In other parts of the region damage from heavy rain, such as this compilation uploaded to YouTube, was caught on video.

The video shows scenes of one or multiple shopping centers experiencing massive flooding and falling debris. Website The Voice of Russia reported that hail around the size of golf balls could be seen which many have broken through a glass canopy and caused the flooding.

In addition to the monster hail, 100 millimeters of rain per hour was said to have fallen, and strong winds uprooted trees and turned over cargo containers in the harbor.

Videos also showed flooding in at least subway stations in the Kowloon Peninsula of Hong Kong.

Although the damage to property looked significant thankfully there appear to have been no reported casualties or serious injuries, which is good because I want to make petty complaints about two things in particular here.

First, when filming something from your mobile phone please turn it sideways. Granted this was an extreme case and we can’t expect people to be aware enough to get it right, but if we all practice by filming our children and pets with our phones sideways then even in an emergency the resultant video won’t look like it was shot through a wall-socket.

And for the people posting on YouTube, please stop using the theme music to Requiem for a Dream and 28 Days Later. Those movies are over a decade old and their songs are more played out in YouTube videos than Gangnam Style with about as much emotional impact at this point.

Well, glad I got that off my chest… What were we talking about again?

Source: Yahoo! Japan News, The Voice of Russia via Toychan (Japanese)
Video: YouTube – Jimmy Cat, Ka Ki Wong