Typhoon Maysak caused rivers and reservoirs to overflow, prompting Nanning, the capital of the southwestern Guangxi region of China, to increase its flood control response to the highest level, according to Chinese official media on Monday.
The gusts of over 50 miles per hour (80.5 kph) that battered Vietnam and China's southern island province of Hainan over the weekend are no longer present in Maysak, which is now a slower-moving tropical storm.
However, Chinese meteorologists predict that as the storm moves inland and becomes weaker, it will release the water it absorbed while travelling over the South China Sea, causing devastating floods.
Authorities in Nanning, a metropolis of almost 9 million people, upped the flood control emergency reaction level to I from III owing to "extremely heavy rain", China Central Television (CCTV) said.
According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, which cited local authorities, there has been one reported breach at a medium-sized reservoir in Hengzhou, Nanning, and residents are being evacuated.
As per a video shared on the Chinese social networking site Douyin and confirmed by Reuters, floodwaters in the city of Guigang, some 170 miles (273.6 km) away, converted a large road into a lake, drowning cars and cascading in brown torrents down a slope into a building site.
The water level at Guigang Hydrological Station has climbed to 42 metres at 12:30 p.m. (04:30 GMT), Reuters quoted the Ministry of Water Resources as saying in a statement.
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Another authenticated video from Fangchenggang, further south, showed a little automobile being washed down a street. In the same video, a man was seen fighting to keep his electric scooter from being carried away as the water rose to the level of another car's steering wheel.
China, the world's second-largest economy, faces increased hazards from extreme weather, which meteorologists attribute to climate change. Tens of billions of dollars' worth of commercial activity could be destroyed annually by weather-related risks, according to analysts, when cities flood, industrial production ceases, and crops are washed away or drowned.
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