Torrential Rains Swamp Shanghai, Flooding Homes and Businesses Across the City

On Aug. 10, record-breaking rainfall brought severe flooding to Shanghai, turning streets into rivers and sending gushing water into homes and businesses after Tropical Storm Dolphin battered eastern China. Shanghai is known as one of China’s most important financial and commercial hubs.

Dolphin, which was first categorized as a typhoon, made two landfalls in neighboring Zhejiang Province on Aug. 9, bringing torrential downpours and extreme weather across the region. By the following day, videos circulating from Shanghai showed widespread flooding in several districts, with residents and business owners attempting to pump water from inundated properties.

One woman described water reaching knee level inside some homes. “I never imagined Shanghai would get this much rain this year. So many districts have been flooded. Some homes that were renovated just a year ago have been completely soaked, with water reaching knee level. The rain in Shanghai has been so severe this year. It’s terrifying!” she said, adding, “Across from the Hongqiao Road subway station, Changning International has turned into a waterfall!”

Concerns over drainage infrastructure

Flooding was particularly severe along Lancun Road in Shanghai’s Pudong district, where one resident questioned why recently completed infrastructure improvements had failed to prevent the street from becoming inundated.

“Lancun Road underwent two years of renovations, roadwork, and drainage-pipe construction. In the past, even heavier rain never flooded it like this,” the man said. “It hasn’t even been raining that long today, and just this amount of typhoon rainfall has flooded the entire Lancun Road like this. Was there a problem with the project?”

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Near the South Shaanxi Road subway station, videos showed water entering businesses along flooded streets. One luxury handbag and jewelry store was reportedly inundated by water approaching one meter deep. The store’s owner estimated the damage at “at least 1 million” yuan.

Shanghai recorded exceptionally heavy rainfall during the storm, with reports indicating that the city’s 24-hour precipitation broke a record dating back more than 150 years.

Reuters reported on Aug. 9 that more than 1 million people had been evacuated across eastern China, including large-scale evacuations in Zhejiang, Shanghai, Fujian, and Jiangsu. Reuters specifically reported that Wenzhou had relocated more than 900,000 people and Fujian nearly 99,000.

Flood threat spreads beyond Shanghai

Amid the flooding, one video circulating widely on Chinese social media claimed that two people “were electrocuted” after water entered a residential building in Shanghai. Video shared online appeared to show two unresponsive men being pulled from a flooded building. The person who posted the footage claimed that both had died from electrocution inside the residence.

Though the account has not been verified, the claim nevertheless drew criticism online over what some users described as a lack of coverage from China’s state-controlled media.

The flooding was not limited to Shanghai. Parts of neighboring Jiangsu Province, including Wuxi, also reported severe waterlogging, with underground parking garages inundated and roads submerged. Heavy rainfall and flooding were also reported across parts of Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei, and Henan as the remnants of Dolphin continued moving inland.

Despite the storm weakening after making landfall, Chinese forecasters warned that its remaining moisture could bring another round of heavy rain farther north. Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, and parts of Henan were among areas facing the prospect of sustained rainfall, with authorities warning of an increased risk of flash floods, landslides, and urban flooding.

For Shanghai, the scale of the flooding has also renewed questions among residents about whether drainage systems in one of China’s wealthiest and most heavily developed cities are equipped to withstand increasingly severe rainstorms and weather events.