China’s flood-stricken Henan shakes off logistics disruptions, but short-term delays continue

Name: Residents of Xinxiang in China's Henan province cope with continued threat of floodwaters
Uploaded: 2021-07-29T12:15:15.000Z
Duration: 2 min 36 s
Description: Residents of Xinxiang in China's Henan province cope with continued threat of floodwaters

Postal services in Henan have cleared backlogs on goods in transit and e-commerce giant JD.com says shipping services have resumed

Deadly floods paralysed large parts of the province last week, forcing traders and manufacturers to temporarily suspend operations

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Roads and other transport infrastructure in Henan have been mostly cleared after flash floods inundated the Chinese province last week. Photo: Xinhua

Luna Sun

Published: 8:15pm, 29 Jul 2021Updated: 10:24pm, 29 Jul 2021

Transport and delivery services in central China’s flood-ravaged Henan province have mostly been restored, with logistics operations in e-commerce hub Zhengzhou suffering only short-term delays.

Roads and other transport infrastructure have largely been unblocked after flash floods inundated the province last week, killing at least 99 people, officials and traders said.

Postal services in Henan have cleared backlogs on goods in transit and expect deliveries to flow smoothly, the transport ministry said, but some traders say customers should expect delays of around three days for orders due to damage to warehouses and disrupted operations.

As a hub for rail freight, Henan is a key distribution point for many cross-border and regional e-commerce businesses.

China’s Henan province inundated by catastrophic floods

Top Chinese online retailer JD.com said despite short-term disruptions to regional operations, its shipping services had resumed and it was offering return or redelivery services to customers. The e-commerce giant said its national logistics and distribution were unaffected by the disaster.

Some of JD’s transfer centres in cities such as Hebi and Xinxiang were hard hit by the floods, but operations had restarted with support from its Asia No.1 warehouse in Zhengzhou, which serves central China and suffered little damage.

Tyler Ye, a cross-border e-commerce trader who imports from Australia to his warehouses in Zhengzhou, said logistics operations in the capital were delayed for 48 hours after the floods started, but quickly resumed once military personnel cleared rubbish and drains, and sandbagged waterways.

“We expect delays for all cross-border deliveries of about three days, but we think our customers will understand,” Ye said.

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Residents of Xinxiang in China's Henan province cope with continued threat of floodwaters