Massive storms in South China – Honda has issues.

---

Massive rain storms have severely affected automotive output in Southern China over the weekend. Guangzhou Honda have been forced to stop production at two car factories, and one engine factory due to flooding, Guangzhou Honda have also cut their sales forecasts considerably for the coming months. Guangzhou Honda believe that they will be on target to sell 340,000 vehicles this year, rather than the 360,000 vehicle marker they previously forecast.

Dongfeng also suspended production of the best selling CRV and the Civic over the weekend, although the reason for suspension was due to a shortage of parts rather than the weather.

Reuters has the latest on the storms:

BEIJING (AP) — At least 55 people have died and seven are missing in flooding across a broad stretch of southern China, state media reported Sunday.

More than 1.2 million people have been forced to flee their homes across nine provinces, including Sichuan, which is still reeling from last month’s earthquake that killed almost 70,000 people, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Heavy rain in Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan provinces will further raise water levels downstream, especially in the coastal manufacturing powerhouse of Guangdong, Xinhua says. Most of those areas are expected to receive more heavy rain over the next 10 days.

Just to the south, communities with tens of thousands of people were threatened by the swollen Xijiang River in the Guangxi region, where a 130-foot crack had opened in an embankment near Changzhou, Xinhua said.

Nearly 120,000 people fled to high ground in the nearby town of Longhua when river water began to pour through the gap, it said.

“If the crack widened and the dike collapsed, the flood would directly threaten the safety” of the city of Wuzhou on Guangxi’s border with Guangdong, Zhang Jinshen, a regional flood control official, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.