2023-08-01 14:31:19
Typhoon Doksuri, downgraded to a storm, has swept China’s territory from southeast to north since Friday.
At least 20 people have died and 19 are missing as heavy rains hit Beijing and surrounding provinces, where entire neighborhoods are flooded and roads blocked, state media reported Tuesday.
Heavy rains have already left 11 dead in Beijing, while in the neighboring province of Hebei (northeast) nine deaths were reported on Tuesday, bringing the death toll to 20, according to reports from the state-run CCTV network.
In total, 19 people are missing (13 in Beijing and six in Hebei). Previously, 27 were reported missing in the Chinese capital, but 14 were found safe and sound, CCTV said.
Typhoon Doksuri, downgraded to a storm, has swept China’s territory from southeast to north since Friday, when it made landfall in the eastern province of Fujian, after hitting the Philippines.
Torrential rains poured into and around Beijing on Saturday, dumping the equivalent of the average rainfall for the entire month of July in just 40 hours.
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Some semi-rural districts of Beijing are the most severely affected by storms, of unprecedented intensity in the Chinese capital in recent years.
More than 100,000 people, of the 22 million inhabitants of Beijing, have been evacuated from the risk areas, according to the state newspaper Global Times.
“Much more serious”
On the banks of the Mentougou river, which runs through the district of the same name, one of the most affected by the floods in Beijing, AFP journalists saw rubble covering the road covered in mud.
An elderly man told AFP that these floods are “much more serious” than those of July 2012, when 79 people died in Beijing and tens of thousands were evacuated.
“It’s a natural disaster, you can’t do anything about it. You have to work hard and rebuild everything,” Qi, a man in his 20s waiting for a taxi with his grandmother, told AFP.
AFP journalists saw a dozen vehicles en route to Mentougou, including tankers and power shovels clearing blocked sections of road.
Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Tuesday to “make all possible efforts” to prevent more deaths and rescue “missing or trapped” people, state media reported.
Local authorities “should do a good job of caring for the injured” and “relocate those affected, quickly repair damaged transportation, communication and electricity infrastructure,” Xi added.
CCTV broadcast images of buses submerged by floodwaters in rural Fangshan district, also in western Beijing.
saved in extremis
In Mentougou, around 15,000 households were left without access to running water and authorities sent 45 tanker trucks to ensure emergency supplies, the Beijing Daily, a Communist Party daily, said on Tuesday.
China sent military helicopters carrying 26 soldiers to the Mentougou area on Tuesday to provide food, water, blankets and rain gear to passengers on some blocked trains, according to CCTV.
Beijing and the province of Hebei (north) were on red alert for rainfall and risk of dangerous flash floods and landslides.
In the city of Handan, 400 km south of the capital, rescue teams managed on Sunday with the help of a crane to evacuate a man from his vehicle surrounded by water before the car was swept away by the current.
China is going through a year of extreme weather conditions and record temperatures, two events that scientists say are exacerbated by climate change.
Meteorological services indicate that the precipitation may weaken on Tuesday, but the country is preparing for the arrival of a new typhoon, Khanun, which is approaching the east coast.
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