At least two people were killed on Monday in the Chinese capital Beijing, placed on high alert for floods and landslides, due to torrential rains that have been falling on the region since Friday.
Rescue services found two bodies in waterways in Beijing’s Mentougou district, according to the People’s Daily (state media).
Much of Beijing’s suburbs “are at high risk of cave-ins, landslides and mudslides,” according to the authorities’ alert.
AFP journalists saw tree branches and dented cars on the banks of Mentougou, a western suburb of Beijing, on Monday. “This morning was madness, the Mentougou stream overflowed and the whole avenue was flooded,” Guo Zhenyu, a 49-year-old resident, told AFP.
These heavy rains are a consequence of Cyclone Doksuri, which killed at least six people in the Philippines. It has lost some strength and the tropical storm has been sweeping across northern China since Friday.
According to the capital’s weather service, 170.9 millimeters of water fell on Beijing in 40 hours between Saturday evening and Monday noon. That’s almost the average rainfall for a whole month of July.
Beijing has been very cautious about 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.
On Monday, several million people were thus invited to stay at home.
Hundreds of bus connections have been suspended in the capital, according to the state agency New China. The Dashihe river, in the suburbs of Beijing, has been placed on the highest level of flood alert by the authorities.
In images shared with AFP by Chen Hong, a resident of Fengtai district, in the south of the Beijing metropolis, we can see a pickup truck half submerged in brown water on Monday morning.
In this same neighborhood, residents cleared mud in front of their homes, taking advantage of a brief lull, she said.
“As soon as it starts to rain, the road turns into a sewer and the water rises to the first floor of the houses,” she added. “The houses are old and there are safety concerns,” she continued.
In the Fangshan district, also in the Beijing area, part of the roadway subsided due to rising waters.
On social networks, we can see images of vehicles washed away by torrents of mud and roads transformed into rapids by the rains.
In a video shared on the Xiaohongshu platform and geolocated by AFP, water can be seen flowing on a platform of a subway station west of Beijing, in the university district.
In Beijing, the streets were quieter than usual on Monday morning, with many residents following official recommendations to work from home.
Only a few delivery men braved the puddles on the bike paths, which are very crowded in normal times.
On Sunday, Beijing tourist sites were 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.
China has been facing extreme weather conditions and locally unusual temperatures in recent months, exacerbated by climate change according to scientists.
At the beginning of July, Beijing and its region had broken temperature records with locally more than 40°C.
Extreme weather events (cyclones, heat waves, floods, droughts, etc.) are natural phenomena.
But global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activities is increasing their magnitude and/or frequency, experts say.
07/31/2023 11:03:45 – Beijing (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
