3 days ago
Flooding kills at least 40 in and around Beijing, many still missing
Bystanders inspect a washed-up car in Taishitun, in Miyun, Beijing, on Tuesday, following deadly flooding in and around the Chinese capital. Photo by Andres Martinez Casares/EPA
July 29 (UPI) -- At least 40 people were killed in Beijing after the Chinese capital was hit with severe floods following days of heavy rain across the north of the country, authorities said Tuesday.
Most of the casualties were in the hilly northern suburb of Miyun, with 80,000 evacuated to safety, 130 surrounding villages without power and many areas cut off as roads became impassable. Two people were killed in Yanqing, also in the city's north.
A further eight people were confirmed killed in a landslide in Chengde city, 140 miles northeast of Beijing, after six months of rain fell over the weekend. Four people are unaccounted for.
The body of a passenger from a bus that went missing in Shanxi Province, southwest of Beijing, on Sunday was recovered from a river, but authorities have yet to find the bus and 13 other people riding it.
With more heavy rainfall forecast for Tuesday evening local time, President Xi Jinping called for an "all-out" effort by search and rescue teams to find the missing.
"No effort should be spared to search for and rescue those missing or trapped, to transfer and resettle residents in affected areas, and to reduce casualties to the greatest extent possible," the president said.
Anhui and the coastal provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, as well as Shanghai, were under a Level IV emergency response alert due to approaching typhoon Co-May, with its center currently 300 miles southeast of Shanghai in the East China Sea and moving at around 9 m.p.h.
Co-May is gathering strength and is expected to bring heavy rain ahead of coming ashore between Zhoushan and Ningbo in Zhejiang Province sometime during Wednesday, with a possible second landfall in Shanghai's Pudong New Area or Fengxian District.
Southern China was also hit. Hong Kong was particularly affected by rainfall in excess of 4 inches an hour, forcing schools to close and authorities to issue landslide alerts and shutter parts of the subway system.
Conditions in the north and coastal regions contrasted with other areas of the country, which have been placed under heat alerts with temperatures forecast to top 40 degrees Celsius during the next seven-day period.
