Typhoon Saudel’s rains trap 2,500 in a Wenzhou school and force Fujian cities to halt work

More than 2,500 teachers and students were trapped in a school compound in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, on 3 September after flash floods from Typhoon Saudel filled the low ground around the campus. State broadcaster CCTV said authorities used drones to drop food and drinking water. The same storm system put Fujian on a flash-flood warning and made a third landfall at Zhangzhou after it rebuilt over the South China Sea. Heavy rain in Fujian and Guangdong was forecast through Friday. Fuding halted work, industry, and classes. Zhangzhou and Quanzhou shut schools. Video from Fuding showed brown water carrying cars and debris down streets.

In Fu'an, also in Fujian, school desks were lined up as a temporary bridge so that 3,200 people could cross a flooded campus and leave. CGTN broadcast the clip on 3 September. The image is practical rather than symbolic. When water covers the paths between buildings, furniture becomes the shortest dry line off the site. Wenzhou's compound, by contrast, stayed closed long enough that supplies had to come from the air.

Saudel first hit China's eastern coast on 28 August. The third landfall is the detail that matters for the flood tables. A storm that weakens over land, moves back over warm water, and comes ashore again dumps a second load on catchments that are already full. Zhejiang and Fujian sit on short, steep rivers that rise in hours. A school built on low ground in Wenzhou is then a bowl. Drones can feed people inside the bowl. They cannot empty it.

The official response followed the usual provincial script: stop work, stop class, move people, fly supplies. The unofficial record is the desk bridge and the drone drops, two images that show how much water was on campus before anyone could walk out. Reuters, citing CCTV, is the source for the 2,500 figure in Wenzhou. The 3,200 figure in Fu'an comes from state television's own evacuation clip. Neither number has been independently audited. Both are large enough that the campuses were not dealing with ankle-deep water.

Saudel's next track is west across Guangdong. That puts a third belt of cities on the same sequence: flood watch, school closure, then a count of who is still inside. For parents in Wenzhou the relevant fact on 3 September was simpler. The children were in the compound, the gates were wet, and the first resupply came from the sky.