The Chinese capital Beijing and its greater region face torrential rains on Sunday, driven by Typhoon Doksuri. The authorities evacuated tens of thousands of residents and called on the others to stay at home.
To prevent any incident, Beijing tourist sites have been closed, such as the Forbidden City, the popular Universal Studios amusement park, libraries and museums.
The huge National Center for the Performing Arts, located near Tiananmen Square, also closed to the public, has canceled its opera performances and concerts scheduled for Sunday.
Cultural, sports and entertainment activities have been suspended in Beijing. Establishments and businesses located underground have been ordered to close due to the risk of flooding.
China is until at least Monday afternoon on a red precipitation alert in a large area of ??the north of the country, where hundreds of millions of people live.
It includes in particular Beijing (22 million inhabitants), the neighboring metropolis of Tianjin (14 million), the neighboring province of Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong (east) and Henan (center).
In the city of Baoding, about 100 km southwest of Beijing, police helped motorists navigate partially flooded roads, where cyclists had water up to their calves, according to images broadcast by the CCTV public television.
The mayor of Beijing has asked schools to temporarily no longer welcome the public, because some students and teachers still go there, despite the summer holidays, for training or extracurricular activities, in particular sports.
In the capital, more than 27,000 people living in risk areas have been evacuated and some 20,000 in Shijiazhuang, a large city located 250 km southwest of the capital, according to official media.
The Ministry of Water Resources raised its response to the risk of flooding to level 2 on Sunday, with in particular more agents mobilized to control rivers and dams.
Some rivers have exceeded alert thresholds and landslides could occur.
A river in flood in a mountainous village on the outskirts of Beijing thus caused a torrent which fortunately did not cause any casualties, 62 homes having been evacuated the day before from this risk zone, indicated a local newspaper.
The capital called on its inhabitants to “only go out if necessary”.
A widely respected advice, with the number of cars and pedestrians on the streets being much lower than usual on Sunday evening. No casualties have so far been reported, according to official media.
The municipality also urged companies “not to force their employees to go to their place of work if it is not necessary”.
Doksuri has been sweeping China since Friday. It is moving from southeast to north, according to weather services.
Authorities have exercised great caution over heavy rainfall since 2021, when severe flooding in the center of the country killed more than 300 people, mostly in the major city of Zhengzhou.
Many motorists had been trapped by the sudden rise in water in road tunnels, which had created a controversy, some accusing the municipality of having been slow to send weather alerts.
07/30/2023 13:50:30 – Beijing (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
