Over 30 dead as northern China hit by heavy rain, landslides
MIYUN, China (AFP) Heavy rain killed more than 30 people and forced authorities to evacuate tens of thousands as swathes of northern China were lashed by torrential downpours that sparked deadly landslides, state media said Tuesday.Weather authorities have issued their second-highest rainstorm warning for the capital Beijing, neighbouring Hebei and Tianjin, as well as ten other provinces in northern, eastern and southern China, state news agency Xinhua said.The rains are expected to last into Wednesday, it added.As of midnight Monday, "the latest round of heavy rainstorms has left 30 people dead in Beijing", Xinhua said, citing the city's municipal flood control headquarters.Over 80,000 people have been evacuated in the Chinese capital alone, local state-run outlet Beijing Daily said on social media.The death toll was highest in Miyun, a suburban district northeast of the city centre, it said."This time the rain was unusually heavy; it's not normally like this," a resident of Miyun, surnamed Jiang, told AFP as water streamed down the road outside her house."The road is full of water, so people aren't going to work," she said.At a village called Xinanzhuang, visited by AFP journalists, murky water submerged homes, cars and a road leading onto a highway.A local man in his sixties said that he had never seen water levels so high.Nearby, spillways gushed with torrents of water leading out of the Miyun Reservoir, which authorities said has reached its highest levels since its construction in 1959.Also badly affected were the Huairou district in the north of the city and Fangshan in the southwest, state media said.Dozens of roads have been closed and over 130 villages have lost electricity, Beijing Daily said."Please pay attention to weather forecasts and warnings and do not go to risk areas unless necessary," the outlet said.And in Hebei, which encircles the capital, a landslide in a village near the city of Chengde killed eight people, with four still missing, state broadcaster CCTV reported Tuesday.
Local authorities have issued flash flood warnings through Tuesday evening, with the city of Chengde and surrounding areas under the highest alert, Hebei's radio and television station said.
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