BEIJING: Torrential rains have left at least 30 people dead in Beijing and forced more than 80,000 to leave their homes, as floodwaters swept through roads, villages, and city suburbs, state media said on Tuesday.
Emergency crews have been working around the clock to rescue those trapped, with heartbreaking scenes of people being carried to safety through waist-deep water.
The worst-hit areas include Miyun and Fangshan, where many families have lost everything in just a matter of hours.
Intense rainstorms have battered parts of northern China this week, including the capital and the provinces of Hebei, Jilin, and Shandong.
As of midnight Monday, “the latest round of heavy rainstorms has left 30 people dead in Beijing,” state news agency 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.
It added that “continuous extreme heavy rainfall caused major disasters”.
The death toll was highest in Miyun, a suburban district northeast of the city centre, it said.
Also badly affected were the Huairou district in the north of the city and Fangshan in the southwest, state media reported.
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.
In Miyun, a resident surnamed Liu said he watched floodwater sweep away vehicles outside his apartment block early Monday morning.
AFP journalists there saw a crawler lift people and a dog to safety as rescuers waded through water up to their knees.
Nearby, in the town of Mujiayu, AFP journalists saw a reservoir release a torrent of water.
Power lines were swept away by muddy currents, while military vehicles and ambulances ploughed through flooded streets.
Firefighters also rescued 48 people trapped in an elderly care centre, CCTV reported.
‘All-out efforts’
Chinese President Xi Jinping urged authorities late Monday to prepare for worst-case scenarios and speed up the relocation of residents in flood-threatened areas.
Beijing Daily said local officials had “made all-out efforts to search and rescue missing persons… and made every effort to reduce casualties”.
In Hebei province, which surrounds the capital, a landslide in a village near the city of Chengde killed four people, with eight still missing, state broadcaster CCTV reported Monday.
Natural disasters are common across China, especially in summer when some regions suffer heavy rain while others endure searing heat.
China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, which scientists say drive climate change and make extreme weather more frequent and intense.
But it is also a global renewable energy powerhouse aiming to make its massive economy carbon-neutral by 2060.
Flash floods in the eastern Shandong province killed two people and left 10 missing this month.
A landslide on a highway in Sichuan province also killed five people this month after it swept several cars down a mountainside.
