Streets turn to rivers as deadly flooding inundates northern Beijing

RNZ News

3 days ago

By
Nectar Gan
and
Joyce Jiang
, CNN
Flooding in Miyun district, on the outskirts of Beijing, on 28 July.
Photo:
Jade Gao/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource
Days of torrential rain have killed at least 30 people in the northern outskirts of Beijing, state media reported Tuesday, as China grapples with yet another deadly rainy season marked by extreme downpours, devastating floods and landslides.
In recent days, intense rainstorms have battered much of northern China - a densely populated part of the country home to massive metropolises as well as agricultural heartlands.
There, residents and their livelihoods have become increasingly vulnerable to worsening summer storms and floods, as well as scorching heatwaves and drought - posing a major challenge to the Chinese government as the climate crisis makes extreme weather more frequent and intense.
The pounding rain intensified around the Chinese capital on Monday, killing 28 people in Miyun, an outlying mountainous suburb in the city's northeast home to more than half a million people; another two were killed in Yanqing, also in the city's north, China's state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Footage circulating on social media shows brown floodwater sweeping through residential communities, washing away cars, knocking down electricity poles and turning streets into rivers in Miyun.
Dozens of roads have been damaged, potentially complicating rescue efforts, and in more than 100 smaller, more rural villages, the downpours have also cut off electricity.
More than 80,000 people have been relocated, including about 17,000 in Miyun, according to CCTV.
Some residents have described their horror on social media. A woman from a small town in Miyun wrote on Xiaohongshu, China's Instagram, that she spent Monday night filled with "a pervasive sense of fear," as a nearby river overflowed, gushing with trees, vehicles and construction debris.
"The place where I grew up was destroyed overnight. I never imagined that such devastation would occur even within the capital, Beijing," she wrote.
Firefighters arrived Tuesday morning for rescue, and telecommunication teams were still trying to recover phone signals in the remote area, she said.
Some residents are assisting in rescue efforts, using boats and excavators to evacuate those trapped by the floodwater. A local man rescued 17 people with his boat, and another man used his excavator to relocate more than 80 people to safety, a Miyun resident told CCTV.
Authorities discharged floodwater from a reservoir in Miyun on Monday after its maximum flood peak flow reached a record high of 6550 cubic meters per second, to make space for incoming torrents, Xinhua reported.
Beijing saw an average rainfall of about 166 millimetres during the recent days of heavy downpours, according to state news agency Xinhua - more than the city's average rainfall for the whole month of July. The maximum rainfall was recorded in Miyun, at 543mm, almost equalling Beijing's average annual rainfall.
On Monday, Beijing issued its highest-level flood alert, urging residents to stay away from swelling rivers. The city's meteorological observatory also issued a red alert for rainstorms - the highest in a four-tier system, warning of intensifying rain during the night and "extremely high risk" of flash floods, mudslides and landslides in mountainous areas.
Authorities have ordered schools, construction sites and scenic spots across the city to be closed, and all rural homestays and campsites to suspend operations.
By Tuesday afternoon, the rains had stopped in central Beijing, and floodwaters had begun to subside in its outskirts.
The heavy rainfall and the accompanying floods and geological disasters have caused "significant casualties and property losses" in Beijing and the northern provinces of Hebei, Jilin and Shandong, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said on Monday, according to CCTV.
Xi instructed officials to make "all-out effort" to search and rescue those still missing, properly evacuate resettle residents at risk and minimize casualties to the greatest extent possible.
David Perdue, the newly appointed US ambassador to China, offered his condolences to the victims.
"I was very sorry to hear about the loss of life in China, including Beijing, due to the heavy rains. We offer our sincere condolences to those who have lost family members and loved ones," he wrote on social platform X.
The deadly rains and floods came just two years after the Chinese capital was pounded by record rains that killed 33 people. In 2023, Beijing was struck by its heaviest rainfall in 140 years, which unleashed severe flash floods in its mountainous western outskirts.
Many provinces in northern China have reported deaths caused by the heavy rainfall.
In Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, a landslide killed four people and left another eight missing, state media reported Monday.
In neighbouring Shanxi province, a bus carrying 14 people went missing near a village in the small hours of Sunday. Authorities found the body of a passenger downstream and were still searching for the others, Xinhua reported.
In the coastal province of Shandong, flash floods destroyed 19 houses in foothill villages last week, killing two people and leaving 10 more missing, after half a year's worth of rain fell in five hours overnight.
In Hebei, some residents trapped by floods and landslides have called for help on social media.
A woman from Yangjiatai, a mountainous village in Chengde city, Hebei province, near Miyun, told CNN her village has been hit by flooding and a landslide, which collapsed houses, cut off roads and knocked out electricity and signal.
She had made her way out of the village to call for help. "Most people haven't been evacuated - only a few individuals are able to come out to communicate with the outside world and bring back some supplies," she said.
- CNN