China floods: more than 30 killed in Beijing and tens of thousands evacuated

The Guardian

2 days ago

More than 30 people have been killed by heavy rain and flooding in Beijing and a neighbouring region, state media have reported, as tens of thousands more were evacuated from China's capital.
State broadcaster CCTV said that as of midnight on Monday, 28 people had died in Beijing's hard-hit Miyun district and two others in Yanqing district as of midnight. Both are outlying parts of the sprawling city, far from the downtown.
On Monday a landslide in neighbouring Hebei province killed four people, with eight other still missing.
Heavy rain started over the weekend and intensified around Beijing and surrounding provinces on Monday, with the capital getting rainfall of up to 543.4mm in its northern districts, Xinhua said.
Beijing relocated 80,322 residents as the rain hit, Xinhua reported. Roads and communication infrastructure were damaged, and 136 villages were left without power as of midnight Monday.
Late on Monday, Chinese president Xi Jinping ordered 'all-out' search and rescue efforts to minimise casualties.
Beijing issued its highest-level rain and flood alerts on Monday, advising residents to not leave their homes.
Authorities released water from a reservoir in Miyun district that was at its highest level since it was built in 1959. Authorities warned people to stay away from rivers downstream as their levels rose and as more heavy rain was forecast.
Heavy flooding washed away cars and downed power poles in Miyun, which borders Hebei's Luanping county.
Uprooted trees lay in piles with their bare roots exposed in the town of Taishitun, about 100km northeast of central Beijing. Streets were covered with water, with mud left higher up on the wall.
'The flood came rushing in, just like that, so fast and suddenly. In no time at all, the place was filling up,' said Zhuang Zhelin, who was clearing mud with his family from their building materials shop.
Beijing authorities launched a top-level emergency response on Monday evening, ordering people to stay inside, closing schools, suspending construction work and stopping outdoor tourism and other activities until the response is lifted.
The heaviest rain in Beijing was expected early Tuesday, with rainfall of up to 30cm forecast for some areas.
The central government said in a statement it had sent 50m yuan (about $7m) to Hebei and dispatched a high-level team of emergency responders to help the affected areas.
Human-caused climate breakdown is supercharging extreme weather across the world, driving more frequent and more deadly disasters from heatwaves to floods to wildfires. At least a dozen of the most serious events of the last decade would have been all but impossible without human-caused global heating.
With Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse