Staff Writer
According to Beijing’s weather service on Wednesday, as a mammoth cleanup effort got under way, the deadly rains that pelted China’s capital over the past few days were the highest since records first began 140 years ago.
Extreme weather conditions and protracted heat waves have affected millions of people recently all around the world, and scientists believe that climate change is making these disasters worse.
Additionally, the Beijing Meteorological Service reported that, since municipal officials began keeping statistics, the capital just had its “heaviest rainfall in 140 years.”
The organization noted that the highest volume previously recorded was 609 millimeters in 1891. “The maximum (amount) of rainfall recorded during this storm, which was 744.8 millimeters, occurred at the Wangjiayuan Reservoir in Changping,” it added.
According to state broadcaster CCTV on Tuesday, at least 11 people have perished in Beijing’s rainstorms, and more than a dozen are still missing.
On Wednesday, the flooding’s focal point switched to the nearby province of Hebei.
An AFP team in Beijing’s Fangshan district, which is on the border between the capital and Hebei, observed a park that was entirely submerged and large amounts of trash that had been washed away by violent rains remained close to a bridge.
A police officer reported that the area had been “extremely dangerous” on Tuesday.
Inflatable rafts were being rowed by rescuers through flooded neighborhoods as residents clung to building scaffolding in anticipation of assistance, according to state media footage.
Former super typhoon Storm Doksuri, which last week tore across the Philippines, then moved northward over China after making landfall in southern Fujian province.
The normally dry nation’s capital and its environs were pummeled by heavy rains that started on Saturday.
The amount of rain that was recorded in just 40 hours was almost as much as the monthly average for July.
130 million people would be impacted by the extremely severe rainfall across northern China, state media said last week.
State media reports that 974,400 people have been evacuated from the capital and the nearby province of Hebei as swathes of suburban Beijing and the neighboring areas have been swamped.
In Shanxi province to the west, an additional 42,211 individuals had been evacuated.
On Wednesday morning, the red alert for flooding in the capital was withdrawn by officials “as the water flow in major rivers has gone below the warning mark,” according to Xinhua.
cleaning campaign
As the rain stopped, attention turned to the relief effort. The Chinese Red Cross dispatched hundreds of workers to the worst-hit districts to clear away debris and assist in the evacuation of victims.
According to CCTV, two of the 11 persons killed in the rainstorm in Beijing perished while “on duty during rescue and relief”.
The station said that 14 more persons had been found safe while 13 were remained missing.
Nine people were murdered and six were reported missing in the neighboring province of Hebei, it said.
Over the weekend, the northern province of Liaoning confirmed two more fatalities.
On Tuesday, President Xi Jinping urged “every effort” to save individuals who were “lost or trapped” by the storm.
In addition, Vice-Premier Zhang Guoqing called for “all-out” efforts to find those still missing while on a visit to a relief work site in Mentougou, one of the most severely affected regions of Beijing.
According to state news agency Xinhua, Zhang stated that the main objective of the ongoing work is to save as many lives as possible while also minimizing casualties.
Typhoon Khanun, the sixth typhoon of the year, is expected to arrive soon, and the nation is now on high alert.
