Huang’s village of Qiaotou in Shangrao, Jiangxi province, is just one of many which flooded in the area this week, where 20,000 residents are stranded without power or fresh water. She told her story to the South China Morning Post on Saturday, when she was rescued by her son Huang Shuangxi and firefighters after three days of surviving on biscuits and water.

Huang’s village is one of many in the vicinity of Poyang Lake – China’s largest freshwater lake – which is fed by a tributary of the Yangtze and, in turn, sends out another river that runs near Qiaotou. On Saturday, the Changjiang Water Resources Committee issued the highest red alert for flooding in the lake.

The authorities have warned that the lake’s water level might exceed its historical record of 22.59 metres in July 1998. That year’s flooding, which lasted from mid-June to the beginning of September, was China’s worst in more than 40 years. More than 4,000 people lost their lives and tens of millions were affected, from Guangdong province in the south to Heilongjiang in the northeast.

On Friday evening, the water level at a monitoring checkpoint at the neck of Poyang Lake was close to 22 metres, according to Chen Guiya, deputy director of the Changjiang committee, quoted by online news website Thepaper.cn.

“There is a high possibility that the water level at the neck of the lake will exceed the water level in 1998,” Chen said, adding that preparations were under way to mitigate the flood.

On Saturday morning in Qiaotou, it was difficult to tell where the roads used to be. The village had become a lake and the houses stood midwater like isolated islands. On one rooftop, a golden retriever paced back and forth, watching the passing boats.

Schools and village clinics were halfway under water, as was the entrance to the village, with only the top banner visible above the water – “welcome and come again”, it read. Seven houses had disintegrated or shifted on their foundations. Fortunately, there were no deaths.

On board a Shangrao fire brigade’s rescue boat, vice instructor Sun Chao said the conditions made it difficult to navigate, as he led the mission to search and pick up remaining villagers stranded in their homes.

“We are afraid that the motor boat’s propeller may get caught in trash, such as rope or floating grass on the water, and the engine will die,” he said. It is also difficult to tell direction, which is why the rescue teams always bring a senior villager on-board, who knows their way around town, so the boat can avoid walls, wires and other dangerous objects under the surface.

As the boat drives on, Sun yells, “Look up ahead!” Firefighters at the rear shift the propeller, and the boat steers safely around the canopy of a submerged tree. When the boat passes under telephone poles, he yells “Duck!” and everyone bends over to avoid the wires.

When the boat reaches a house, the firefighters stabilise it with ropes to the fences before Sun climbs on to the balcony, sometimes returning carrying villagers on his back, or helping them to clamber into the boat to safety. The rescued only have time to grab a few valuables – perhaps a blanket, a few shirts, or the family’s ducks.

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China’s massive floods move east, battering communities along Yangtze River

China’s massive floods move east, battering communities along Yangtze River

One villager, Huang Meifeng, has lost the three-storey home which was newly built last year. She is still unsure just how much she and her family have lost. “My whole family farms. We’ve just fertilised the land, but now we are looking at no harvest at all,” she said.

She remembers the flood of 1998, when most of the houses in Qiaotou were inundated for three months. Huang said her family had suffered back then, but had recovered and built a new house only for the water to return once more. “That’s twice in my lifetime,” she said.

Additional reporting by Echo Xie