Flooding around Chinese capital kills at least 20, leaves 27 missing as thousands evacuated

BEIJING (AP) — Torrential rains in areas around China’s capital Beijing have killed at least 20 people and left 27 missing, the government said Tuesday, as floodwaters destroyed roads, uprooted trees and knocked out power. .

Thousands of people were evacuated to shelters in schools and other public buildings in the suburbs of Beijing and in the nearby cities of Tianjin and Zhuozhou.

The severity of the flooding took the Chinese capital by surprise. Beijing usually has dry summers, but this year it had an unprecedented hot spell.

Other areas, especially southern China, have suffered unusually severe summer floods that have caused dozens of deaths. Other parts of the country are battling drought.

Muddy water rushing down the streets washed away cars in the Mentougou district, on the western edge of Beijing.

“Cars parked on the street floated and were swept away,” said a resident, Liu Shuanbao. “A couple of cars parked behind my apartment building were gone in just a minute.”

Emergency workers used bulldozers Tuesday to clear streets as residents waded through the mud.

“Neither the officials nor ordinary people expected it to rain so much,” said another Mentougou resident, Wu Changpo. “There were many landslides and flooded towns. I repeatedly cried watching these reports.”

Eleven deaths were reported in Beijing and authorities were searching for 27 missing people, according to the official Xinhua news agency. Nine deaths were reported in Hebei province, which surrounds the capital.

Power was cut to some 60,000 homes in the capital’s Fangshan district, Phoenix TV reported on its website.

In Zhuozhou, southwest of Beijing, some 125,000 people from high-risk areas have been transferred to shelters, Xinhua said.

President Xi Jinping issued an order for local governments to do everything possible to rescue trapped people and minimize loss of life and property damage.

The government of Tianjin, a port east of Beijing, said 35,000 people were evacuated near the swollen Yongding River.

Up to 500 millimeters (nearly 20 inches) of rain has fallen in some places since Saturday, according to the Hebei province’s meteorological agency. Some areas reported up to 90 millimeters (3 1/2 inches) of rain per hour.

Some 13 rivers exceeded warning levels in the Haihe basin, which includes Beijing, Tianjin and Shijiazhuang, Xinhua said, citing the Ministry of Water Resources.

Some 42,000 people were evacuated from areas of Shanxi province to western Hebei, it said, citing emergency officials.

In early July, at least 15 people died from the floods in the southwestern region of Chongqing, and some 5,590 people in the far northwestern Liaoning province had to be evacuated. In the central province of Hubei, storms trapped residents in their vehicles and homes.

China’s deadliest and most destructive floods in recent history occurred in 1998, when 4,150 people died, most of them along the Yangtze River.

In 2021, more than 300 people died in floods in the central province of Henan. Record rains inundated the provincial capital of Zhengzhou on July 20 of that year, turning streets into raging rivers and inundating at least part of one subway line.