Taishitun (China), Jul 29: Heavy rains and flooding killed 30 people in Beijing, China’s capital, the country’s state media reported on Tuesday, bringing the death toll from the storms in the region to at least 34.
State broadcaster CCTV said that 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.
More heavy rain fell overnight in the area. More than 80,000 people have been relocated in Beijing, including about 17,000 in Miyun, a CCTV online report said.
Reports on Monday said a landslide in neighboring Hebei province had killed four people, with eight others still missing. The victims in Hebei were caught in a landslide in a rural part of Luanping county. A resident told the state-backed Beijing News that communications were down and he couldn’t reach his relatives.
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.
China’s Premier Li Qiang said Monday that the heavy rain and flooding in Miyun caused “serious casualties,” and called for rescue efforts, according to China’s Xinhua News Agency.
Uprooted trees lay in piles with their bare roots exposed in the town of Taishitun, about 100 kilometers 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.
Next door, Zhuang’s neighbour Wei Zhengming, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, was shovelling mud in his clinic; his feet in slippers were covered in mud.
“It was all water, front and back. I didn’t want to do anything. I just ran upstairs and waited for rescue. I remember thinking, if no one came to get us, we’d be in real trouble,” said Wei.
Beijing authorities launched a top-level emergency response at 8 p.m. Monday, 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 30 centimeters forecast for some areas.
Another 10,000 people were evacuated from the nearby Jizhou district under the city of Tianjin, Xinhua reported.
The central government said in a statement it had sent 50 million yuan (about $7 million) to Hebei and dispatched a high-level team of emergency responders to help the affected cities, which include Chengde, Baoding and Zhangjiakou.
Beijing and Hebei suffered severe flooding in 2023.(AP)
