SHANGHAI, July 19 (Reuters) – Two dams in China’s northwest region of Inner Mongolia collapsed after torrential rains, the water ministry said on Monday, highlighting the safety risks posed by aging infrastructure during the summer flood season.

Dams in the Inner Mongolian city of Hulunbuir collapsed on Sunday afternoon. They had formed reservoirs with a combined water storage capacity of 46 million cubic meters, the water resources ministry said.

People living downstream were evacuated, with no casualties, he added.

The ministry said an average of 87 millimeters of rain fell at Hulunbuir over the weekend and up to 223 millimeters at Morin Dawa monitoring station.

Extreme weather conditions have hit several parts of the world in recent weeks with flooding in Europe and heat waves in North America, adding to concerns about climate change.

The Hulunbuir city government said on its WeChat account that 16,660 people were affected, with 326,622 mu (53,807 acres) of farmland submerged. Bridges and other transportation infrastructure were also destroyed.

Footage posted on Chinese social media shows one of the dams completely washed away, flooding nearby fields.

China has more than 98,000 reservoirs used to regulate floods, generate electricity and facilitate shipping. More than 80% of them are four decades old or older, and some pose a security risk, the government has acknowledged.

A lack of financial resources means nearly a third of the total number have not had mandatory safety assessments, Wei Shanzhong, vice minister of water resources, said at a press briefing this year.

Reporting by David Stanway Editing by Robert Birsel

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.